


What You Think Of And What You Do

by screaminginternally



Series: 'I'm in love with my princess. And I'm enquiring if she loves me too' [4]
Category: The Princess Diaries - All Media Types
Genre: Drama & Romance, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Drama, Female Friendship, Less Nick than I'm happy with but we're dealing, Male-Female Friendship, Mia's actually acting closer to her book version because she's moon-eyed over michael, Teen Romance, i'm just bad at writing it!, it's an important character trait okay!!, literally so much happens in this book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21568630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screaminginternally/pseuds/screaminginternally
Summary: Christmas is barreling full speed ahead, bringing along: Finals, Mia's trip to Genovia, and the overwhelming sense that something big is going to happen for Mia's crush on Michael.She has to survive the end of her school term, first.
Relationships: Mia Thermopalis & Lilly Moscovitz, Mia Thermopalis & Nicholas Devereaux, Mia Thermopalis & Tina Hakim Baba, Michael Moscovitz/Mia Thermopolis
Series: 'I'm in love with my princess. And I'm enquiring if she loves me too' [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1373011
Comments: 35
Kudos: 52





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “One of Sara’s ‘pretends’ is that she is a princess,” said Jessie. “She plays it all the time-even in school. She wants Ermengarde to be one too, but Ermengarde says she is too fat.”  
> “She is too fat,” said Lavinia. “And Sara is too thin.”  
> “Sara says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It only has to do with what you think of, and what you do.” Jessie explained.  
> \--A Little Princess, Francis Hodgeon Burnett

**English Class Assignment (due December 8)**

**_Here at Albert Einstein High School we have a very diverse student population. Over one hundred and seventy different nations, religions and ethnic groups are represented by our student body. In the space given, describe the manner in which your family celebrates the uniquely American holiday, Thanksgiving._ **

**Mia Thermopalis’ Thanksgiving.**

**6:45AM:** _Roused by the sound of my mother vomiting. She is well into the third month of her pregnancy, and according to her obstetrician, all the morning sickness should stop in the next trimester. Thank god._

 **7:45AM:** _Frank, my stepfather (and also Algebra teacher, so life at school with him is weird) knocks on my door. It’s time to go, because we are having Thanksgiving at his parent’s house in Sagaponack on Long Island. We have to leave by 8 if we want to beat the traffic._

 **8:45AM:** _There is no traffic this early on Thanksgiving, so we arrive at Frank’s parents house three hours early._

_Mrs Gianini (not my mother. Frank’s mother. My mother is still Helen Thermopalis because she is a fairly well-known painter by that name, and also because she does not believe in the cult of the patriarchy. Also legally changing your name is a lengthy process with lots of paperwork, and Mum doesn’t like the paperwork needed to legalise a sale of her own work, nevermind something she considers pointless) is still in her curlers, and very surprised to see us. Not just due to the early hour though, but also because my mother entered the house and immediately had to go vomit in the bathroom, on account of the smell of the cooking turkey._

_I know better than to hope this means my future baby sibling will be a vegetarian like me, but it doesn’t hurt to wish._

_My mother has informed me during the car ride that Frank’s parents are very old-fashioned and are used to enjoying a conventional Thanksgiving meal; my annual Thanksgiving speech about the genocide committed against the Native Americans by the Pilgrims for whom we are giving Thanks – for deliberately infecting the natives with smallpox and enabling the natives’ own self-destruction under their influence with the ‘gifting’ of weapons, ammunition and alcohol, which the natives were not used to and therefore affected them more heavily than it did their European counterparts – and that it is reprehensible that we, as a country, annually celebrate this destruction of an entire culture._

_Instead, my mother said, I should discuss more neutral topics, such as the weather._

**9:45AM-11:45AM _:_** _I watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade with Frank’s father, Frank Senior, in what is apparently a rec room._

_I don’t even understand the function of a rec room, but the couches are comfortable._

_Remembering my mother’s warning, I refrain from repeating another of my Thanksgiving rants – that the Macy’s parade is a gross example of American capitalism run amok; I’m sorry, but using cute animal-shaped balloons to lure children into begging their parents to buy them things they don’t need and the manufacture of which is contributing to the destruction of our planet – both by destroying the land and polluting the air and sky with fumes, and the land with plastic toys that won’t degrade for decades at soonest?_

_It is sickening, FIGHT ME._

_Biting my tongue is made easier by the fact that I caught sight of my friend Lilly standing in the crowd, her video camera clutched to her face as a float carrying Miss America and Star Trek actor William Shatner passed by. So I know Lilly is going to take care of denouncing Macy’s on the next episode of her public-access show,_ Lilly Tells It Like It Is.

 **12:00PM:** _Frank’s elder sister and her family arrive, along with the pumpkin pies. The twin kids are my age, named Nathan and Claire. I know right away that Claire and I are not going to be best friends, because no sooner are we introduced that she looks at me the way the mean cheerleaders at AEHS look at me in the hallway, before asking in the snottiest voice someone could use with a perfect stranger, “_ You’re _the one who’s supposed to be a princess?”_

_All I could say back was, “Yeah, I was disappointed too.”_

_Which made Nathan laugh, if nothing else._

_But frankly I don’t care if Claire doesn’t like me, given that she’s wearing a pony-skin leather miniskirt. And no, it’s not imitation. I don’t like cow-leather on clothes, but at least we eat cows. So they’re dying for more than one reason; I doubt Claire cares, however, that a horse had to die for the sole purpose of her having that skirt._

_Nathan didn’t show up in the skin of dead animals, but he was dressed as every rapper on MTV, all baggy pants and gold chains – and when Frank G. Senior let Nathan change the channel, MTV2 provoked Nathan to sing along to every song, which he knows all the words to. Even when the dirty words were bleeped out, Nathan sang them anyway._

**1:00PM:** _The food is ready and served. We begin eating._

 **1:15PM:** _We finish eating._

 **1:20PM:** _I help Frank’s mother clean up. She told me not to be ridiculous and to go have ‘a nice gossip’ with Claire. I wonder if all grandmothers that aren’t mine have the same sweet demeanour, because Mrs G reminds me of Lilly’s Nana a lot, which means she’s the complete opposite of Clarisse Renaldo._

_Instead of going back to the table to be ignored by Claire, I stayed with Mrs G and told her how much I’m enjoying having Frank live with us. Frank is a very good housemate, given that he can cook and doesn’t mind cleaning, and the bigger TV he brought when he moved in definitely isn’t hated._

_Mrs G was immensely gratified to hear this, because old people like hearing nice stuff about their kids. Even if their kid, Frank, is thirty-nine._

**3:00PM:** _We have to leave if we are going to beat the traffic. I say goodbye. Clair doesn’t say anything back to me, but Nathan advises me to keep it real._

_We also get given a lot of leftover turkey, even though I don’t eat turkey, being a vegetarian and opposed to the mass slaughter of helpless fowl every time a holiday rolls around. My cat Fat Louie will eat more of this dead bird than I will._

**6:30PM:** _We finally make it home, after spending three and a half hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Long Island Expressway, which is an oxymoron of a name if there ever was one. I barely have time to change into my evening dress and flat shoes before my bodyguard, Lars, gets to the Loft with the car to take me to my second Thanksgiving event._

 **7:30PM:** _We get to the Plaza Hotel, where I am greeted by the concierge, who announces me to the masses assembled in the Palm Court:_ ‘Presenting Her Royal Highness Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopalis Renaldo’.

_God forbid they just say Mia._

_My father, the Prince of Genovia, and his mother, the Dowager Princess, rented the Palm Court for the evening to throw a Thanksgiving banquet for their friends and the important people of NYC. When told of this, I found it odd that a pair of people who are not even American would want to care about an American holiday; voicing this was a mistake, however, because Grandmere made me recite the names and positions of every single member of the Genovian Parliament until I got them all completely correct. From memory._

_It was her idea to have what she calls an ‘old-fashioned’ Thanksgiving dinner (which is rich, because she’s French by birth, and she’s only been in New York since September, which makes this the longest stretch of time she’s EVER been in America), so the food was mussels in white wine sauce, squab stuffed with fois gras, and lobster tails and caviar. You know. Your ‘standard’ Thanksgiving dinner. I’m pretty sure turkey never appeared on the table. Grandmere invited two hundred guests to the dinner, including the Emperor of Japan and his wife, since they were in town for a world trade summit._

_Which is why I wasn’t wearing heels. I’m five foot nine, and Grandmere says it’s rude to be taller than an emperor._

**8:00PM-11:30PM:** _I make polite conversation with the empress while we eat. She is a lovely old woman, and also the first commoner of Japan to marry into the royal family, so she and I found some commonality, in being raised utterly normal before having to be trained into behaving royally. Although I imagine her teacher was not her grandmother bullying her into behaving ladylike every summer when she had no escape, like my training has been._

_I felt very bad, however, because I was so tired from my early start I couldn’t stop yawning, no matter how I tried to stop. She was very understanding, but yawning in an empress’ face is bad manners. I could tell, because every time I yawned, Grandmere glared at me like she wanted to stab me with her lobster fork._

_My father noticed my yawning eventually and granted me a royal reprieve from dessert. Lars took me back home. Grandmere was clearly upset I was leaving before the cheese course, but it was either that or fall asleep in the fromage bleu._

**12:00AM:** _After a long and exhausting day of giving thanks to the founders of America – those genocidal hypocrites known as the Pilgrims- I finally go to bed._

**And that concludes Mia Thermopalis’ Thanksgiving.**

;;

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** How’s life?

 **FtLouie:** Well, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I know I’m doing it really, really well.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** At least that’s something. Your exams are coming up, aren’t they?

 **FtLouie:** Yes. Why?

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Wanted to see your reaction to them being mentioned.

 **FtLouie:** Look, I’m studying for them as best I can, despite all the stress and the prep for me coming to Genovia over Christmas and my big speech I have to give – I’m doing my best. And when I get tired of that, I curl into the fetal position on my bedroom floor and desperately wish for the sweet release of death for half an hour, and then I get up and go back to revision.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Sounds like a perfect plan.

 **FtLouie:** I know, right?

 **FtLouie:** How about you?

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** About the same. When we finish this conversation I’m going to just. Die. For like an hour or something.

 **FtLouie:** Good plan. I’ll leave you to it, and go back to learning about the history of the Genovian Olive Farmers Association.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** (thumbs-up emoji)

;;

Maybe the _one_ small upside of Mia’s impending trip to Genovia is the ray of light that she’ll get after it’s all over – Grandmere will be _staying_ in Genovia once the trip is over, and Mia’s going to just resume her normal life, except with a bodyguard! Yay! No more princess lessons!

Maybe! If Mia is absolutely perfect over this trip! So there’s no pressure on any aspect of this situation!

Yeah okay. She’s screwed.

 _Why_ is the idea behind exams to basically stress out anyone who takes them? You have to remember an _entire semester’s_ worth of stuff to have a _chance_ of answering _one_ question right. How is that okay? Wouldn’t it be better to just have tests about each subject after you complete a class module or something?

Argh.

The fact that Mia’s got a whole damn country’s opinion of her to worry about doesn’t help very much either – was Christmas really a good deadline? She knew her dad wanted to get it out of the way quickly, the whole formal announcement of Mia being his heir, etcetera, but oh my sweet God was Mia not needing the mental pressure. Literally, the whole month was December was going to be crap – school, then flying to Genovia, then being _in_ Genovia what with the whole jam-packed schedule Grandmere and her dad had come up with, then the speech she had to give, then Christmas, then the whole flight back to New York.

She’s going to be dead by January, is the point.

So, you would think she’d look forward to spending as much time with her friends as possible – you’d think that going ice skating would be something to look forward to. And Mia is looking forward to that, because her Biology homework is blurring before her eyes.

But she also isn’t, because even though it’s skating with Lilly and Tina, both of them are going to be bringing their boyfriends. And Mia’s going to be a third wheel. Fifth wheel.

And she feels defensive about it. Like, Kenny tried to ask her out, and she said no, because she didn’t want to date him. Because she wasn’t into Kenny, and she’s busy. And she’s ridiculously infatuated with Michael, Lilly’s brother. But being single surrounded by couples is a weird feeling, and Mia just feels uncomfortable. She feels like she should be giving an excuse for being single.

;;

_Annndd_ apparently she needs even more of a reason not to like hanging out with couples – because the guy she’s crushing on has a girlfriend now, apparently.

Yeah. Michael is dating (or – he was on a date?) Judith Gershner, president of the Computer Club, she of the pale skin and raven hair, who rocks the _Geek Chic_ look far better than someone so stereotypical of ‘pretty girl into science’ really should. God, she’s so _in_ Michael’s league the way Mia _isn’t_ , it’s ridiculous. Judith, like Michael, is a senior at their school. Judith, like Michael, is on the Honour Roll. Judith, like Michael, has been accepted early-decision into Columbia University, like Michael, because Judith, like Michael, is brilliantly intelligent. Judith Gershner is, in fact, so intelligent that she won first-place prize at the Albert Einstein High School Annual Bio-Medical Technology Fair for her science project, in which she cloned a fruit fly.

 _She cloned a fruit fly._ She’s _eighteen_.

Mia can’t multiply fractions. Mia’s fourteen. Mia is a princess.

If this is not an indication of which Mia is oh so much Not Michael’s Type, she honestly can’t comprehend a better one. Like, if you were Michael Moscovitz, the straight-A student who got into Columbia in your _junior year_ of high school, who would you rather date? A girl who can clone animals, or a girl only getting a D in Freshman Algebra, in spite of her Algebra teacher _being her live-in stepfather?_

Seriously. Michael and Judith are stupidly perfect for each other, and Mia is wishing for a dream. Arguably, she’s living one, but she’d rather have a fun dream to live, like the hot older boy is, in fact, into her right back, instead of the crappy one where she’s thrown into politics at fourteen.

Of course, it turns out there’s one thing Mia can do that Judith can’t: stay upright on ice skates under her own power. Seriously, Judith was so bad that Michael had to hold onto both her hands to keep her upright. Mia wasn’t sure what surprised her more: that Michael could skate backwards, or that he didn’t seem to mind having to tow Judith around the entire rink the whole time they were there.

It did, however, make her feel bad for one other couple – apparently, the boyfriend saw what Michael and Judith were doing and wanted to give it a go, to his girlfriend’s consternation. Mia figured the girlfriend had a good point, since her boyfriend didn’t seem very good at skating backwards the way Michael was, and the two of them collapsed onto the ice, making the girlfriend shout and storm off the rink. Yowch.

Despite it all, the lovey-dovey couples, Michael and Judith, the fact that Mia honestly felt like the third wheel to _everyone_ at the rink, it was a pretty good time. Mia got hot chocolate before they left, and the barista had put two marshmallows in her drink instead of the usual one.

;;

Sunday dinner at Grandmere’s is generally the same thing every week: terrible; but this one was especially grim, what with the recitation of her schedule for her Winter In Genovia - which, by the way, looks like this:

 **December 20: 3pm.** Commencement of Royal Duties

 **3:30pm. – 5pm.** Meet and greet palace staff

 **5pm. – 7pm.** Tour of the palace

 **7pm. – 8pm.** Change for dinner

 **8pm. – 11pm.** Dinner with Genovian dignitaries

 **December 21: 8am. – 9:30am.** Breakfast with Genovian public officials

 **10am. – 11:30am** Tour of Genovian state schools

 **12pm. – 1pm.** Meet with Genovian schoolchildren

 **1:30pm. – 3pm.** Lunch with members of Genovian Teacher’s Association

 **3:30pm. – 4:30pm.** Tour of Port of Genovia and Genovian naval cruiser (the _Prince Philipe_ )

 **5pm. – 6pm.** Tour of Genovian General Hospital

 **6pm. – 7pm.** Visit with hospital patients.

 **7pm. – 8pm.** Change for dinner

 **8pm. – 11pm.** Dinner with Prince Philipe, Dowager Princess, Genovian military advisors.

 **December 22: 8am. – 9am.** Breakfast with members of Genovian Oliver Grower’s Association

 **10am. – 11am.** Christmas-tree lighting ceremony, Genovian palace courtyard

 **11:30am. – 1:00pm.** Meet with Genovian Historical Society

 **1pm. – 3pm.** Lunch with Genovian Tourist Board

 **3:30pm – 5:30pm.** Tour of Genovian National Art Museum

 **6pm. – 7pm.** Visit Genovian War Veterans Memorial, place flowers on grave of Unknown Soldier

 **7:30pm. – 8:30pm.** Change for dinner

 **8:30pm. – 11:30pm.** Dinner with the Royal family of Monaco

Etcetera. There’s exactly one upside to the jam-packed schedule for this trip, and it’s that the reason it’s all jammed in like this is so that Mia’s introduced to as many public figures and members of Genovia’s government as possible, so that whenever she’s in Genovia in the future, she **won’t** have a schedule this packed, unless it’s for a special formal event or something. Like touring another country. Of course, Mia expects she’ll be dead of exhaustion and jet lag before then, but the sentiment is what Mia’s desperately clinging to.

The whole schedule culminates in her appearance on Christmas Eve, when her dad gives an annual televised address to the Genovian people, during which he’s going to formally introduce her to the public as his heir. Mia is then going to give a whole speech about how she promises to try to do good job as his heir and when she steps into his position, and lead Genovia into the twenty-first century.

Nervous? Mia? About going on television and promising 60,000 people she, a fourteen-year-old, won’t let their country down? Nah. She’s not nervous.

She just also wants to vomit, scream and cry – in that order – whenever the thought crosses her mind. That’s all.

There are some, minute, aspects of this whirlwind tour – she does actually want a tour of the palace, and listen to more about the history of Genovia (because she’s willing to bet that the Historian Society will be more accurate in their retelling than Grandmere usually is. Call it a hunch), and she honestly doesn’t mind that she’ll have to meet a bunch of officials – you have to be passionate about your job to get high up enough in a government that you meet the royalty, after all, so Mia bets that she’ll hear interesting stuff, more or less.

But GOD, it’s going to be exhausting all crammed in together.

And despite Mia trying really, _really_ hard to look on the bright side, she can’t lie and say it’s possible to do that when you’re at dinner with Clarisse Renaldo.

At this particular Sunday dinner, though, there was a fourth person: Sebastiano Grimaldi, her cousin. He’s her dead grandfather’s sister’s daughter’s son. So technically, he’s her first cousin once removed(?), but he’s also not removed enough that, if not for Mia’s existence, he wouldn’t be inheriting the throne of Genovia.

Seriously. If her dad had died without ever having a child, Sebastiano would be the next Prince of Genovia.

Which is probably why, whenever her dad looks at Sebastiano, he heaves a giant shudder. Although that probably has more to do with Philipe’s relationship with Sebastiano being more like that of Mia’s with her own cousin Hank Thermopalis: in theory, you like them, but in physical practice they annoy the hell out of you.

But Clarisse adores Sebastiano. Truly, she really does; when Mia met Sebastiano for the first time, and he literally bowed over Mia’s hand with a big flourish and a kiss to Mia’s knuckles, Clarisse was beaming beneath her silk pink-and-gold turban.

Mia’s never seen Clarisse beam before. Glare, plenty of times. But never beam.

Which might be why Mia’s dad started chewing the ice in his whiskey in a very irritated manner. Clarisses’s smile disappeared immediately when she heard the chewing, and her trademark glare was swung her son’s way, and she hissed out, “If you want to chew ice, Philipe, you can go and have your dinner at McDonald’s with the rest of the proletariats.”

Philipe stopped chewing his ice.

That’s how scary Clarisse Renaldo is. She can make adult men who run countries as their day job stop chewing ice with one sentence.

Sebastiano was in New York at Grandmere’s request, it turned out, because Mia needed a formal dress to wear for her big speech on Christmas Eve, and Sebastiano was one of the most up-and-coming fashion designers in Genovia – according to Grandmere, anyway. She said that its important that Genovia supports its artists and craftspeople, or they will flee to New York, or even worse, Los Angeles.

Which is a shame for Sebastiano, in Mia’s opinion, because he looks like a guy who’d probably like LA a lot – he’s thirtyish with dark hair long enough he tied it in a ponytail for dinner, and he’s all tall and flamboyant-looking. He’d dressed for dinner in a white silk shirt, a blue velvet jacket, black pants that Mia’s pretty sure are leather, and a white ascot instead of a tie. He at least looked the part of someone who cared deeply about his clothes, although was about as happy to sit at a table with someone wearing dead cow skin as she was to eat her Thanksgiving lunch with Claire of the dead horse skin skirt, but at least cows are killed for more than their skin.

Still, Mia’s okay to forgive Sebastiano for his leather pants if he could make her a really good dress – you know, the kind of dress that she could be seen in, god willing, by Michael Moscovitz, and the sight causes all thoughts of Judith Gershner to flee his mind and be replaced with nothing but Mia, Mia, _Mia_.

Of course, the chances of Michael _actually_ seeing Mia in the dress are basically nil, because the speech is only going to be on Genovian TV, not CNN or anything except maybe as a background image as the anchors talk about her speech or whatever.

Sebastiano seemed ready to take on that challenge, though, because he pulled out a pen from his jacket and began sketching – right on the white tablecloth! – a design he thought might accentuate what he called Mia’s narrow waist and long legs. Which was a pretty flattering description of Mia, honestly.

But Mia got kind of bored waiting to be included in Grandmere and Sebastiano’s conversation – given that she couldn’t even see the design he was drawing, so she got up to join her dad on the balcony. He was checking messages on his phone, and making sure his racquetball game with the prime minister of France was still scheduled for Tuesday.

“Mia,” Philipe said when he saw her on the balcony, “what are you doing out here? It’s freezing, go back inside.”

“In a minute. I want some air.” Mia stood next to him and looking out at the city. It really is an awe-inspiring sight, Manhattan at night. You look at all those lights in all those windows and you think for each light there’s at least one person, but maybe even more, maybe like ten people, and well. It’s pretty mind-boggling.

Mia’s lived in Manhattan her whole life and it still impresses her.

Anyway, Mia’s standing there, looking at all the lights, and she realised that one of them probably belonged to Judith Gershner, wherever she lived (she and Lars had dropped of the Computer Club near their homes after Halloween and Rocky Horror, but Mia was half-asleep at that point and couldn’t remember where Judith lived to save her life), and Judith was probably doing something really smart and impressive or whatever. Maybe she’d graduated to cloning crickets or moths. Mia got another flash of Judith and Michael at the ice rink the day before, when they’d smiled at each other when they left to take the subway back to the Moscovitz apartment. Let’s think: a girl who can clone things, or a girl who can’t stay in a conversation with her grandmother and cousin. Which girl would _you_ choose?

Philipe must have noticed something was wrong, because he said, “Look, I know Sebastiano is a bit much, but just put up with him for the next couple of weeks. For my sake.”

“I wasn’t thinking about Sebastiano,” Mia said sadly.

Philipe made a grunting noise, but also no move to go back inside, even though the windows had frosted over from the freezing cold, and Philipe, well. He’s completely bald. Mia watched the tips of his ears and nose start going red from it, but her dad didn’t budge.

She figured this was an invitation to go on. Ordinarily, her dad wasn’t someone she went to with her problems – it’s not that they weren’t close, but he’s her _dad_. What does he know about her problems?

On the other hand, Philipe generally had a rotation of model-like girlfriends every summer of Mia’s youth, so Mia figured he might just be able to offer some insight for Mia’s particular dilemma.

“Dad,” Mia began, “what do you do if you like someone but they don’t know that?”

Philipe stopped looking at his phone, and instead looked at Mia. “Do I know this someone, or is this a hypothetical?”

“You know them, but we can pretend it’s a hypothetical. If you want.”

Philipe twisted his mouth up in one corner. “I’d rather have a name.”

Mia hesitated. She’d never admitted to anyone out loud her crush on Michael. Really, who could she tell? Lilly would probably make fun of her, or worse; and her mum had her own problems.

“It’s Lilly’s brother,” Mia blurted, all in a rush.

Her dad looked alarmed. “Isn’t he in college?”

“Not yet,” Mia said, “he’s going to Columbia in September.” When her dad still looked alarmed, Mia said, “Don’t worry, Dad. I don’t stand a chance. Michael is very smart, he’d never want someone like me.”

Which got her dad all offended. It was interesting to watch, because his face twitched this way and that, like he couldn’t figure out which to be, worried about Mia liking an older boy, or angry the boy didn’t like Mia back. “What do you mean, he’d never want someone like you?” He demanded. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Duh, Dad,” Mia said. “I practically failed Algebra, remember? Michael is going to an Ivy League school, which he got into early choice, for crying out loud. What would he want with someone like me?

Now her dad looked really annoyed. “You make take after your mother as far as your aptitude with numbers is concerned, but you take after me in every other respect.”

This was surprising to hear. Mia stuck out her chin and tried to believe it. “Yeah.”

“And you and I, Mia, are not unintelligent.” Her dad continued. “If you want this Michael boy, you must let him know it.” Her dad looked out at all the lights before continuing in a different, softer tone of voice, “Don’t make the mistake I have in the past, Mia, of keeping your feelings to yourself, out of shyness . . . or, worse, pride.”

Mia didn’t know what to make of that, but her dad sounded . . she wasn’t sure. Sad? Wistful? She couldn’t help wondering if her dad was talking about her mum. Did he wish he’d said something to her, before she’d met Frank, about how he felt? Really felt, not about Helen leaving the electricity bills in the salad spinner or her work cheques in her sixties gas mask, but how he really felt, deep down?

Maybe so, Mia figured, especially when her dad looked down at her – he wasn’t a super tall man, but Mia’s five-nine – and his eyelids were all crinkled in the corners as he said softly, “Faint heart never won fair lady, Mia.”

What do you say to that, though? It’s a pretty loaded sentence.

“You think I should just walk up to Michael or something and be all, ‘Hey, I like you’?”

The spell on Philipe had been broken, all wistfulness gone as he shook his head disgustedly, saying, “No, no; of course not. You need to be more subtle than that, Mia. _Show_ him how you feel.”

“Oh.” Mia may take after her dad in all respects but math, but she had no idea what he meant from that. She kept having this picture of showing Michael how she felt about him by grabbing his face during Gifted and Talented and sucking his tongue into her mouth.

Maybe as a last resort.

“We’d better get back in,” her dad said. “Or your grandmother will suspect us of plotting against her.”

What else is new? Grandmere was always suspecting someone of plotting something against her. Her current belief was that the launderers at the Plaza were plotting against her, because Grandmere blamed the soap used on the Plaza linens for making Rommel’s fur all fall out.

;;

Monday was a standard, but god, the Final Exam schedule made Mia want to curl up and cry.

**FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE**

**December 14 – Reading Day**

**December 15 – Periods One and Two**

So, that’s Algebra and English. Mia’s totally acing English, her grades never getting lower than an A minus since maybe second grade; but her tutor-sessions with Michael during G&T and her after-school sessions with Frank were still totally necessary for her to even _understand_ what Frank was talking about in class.

**December 16 – Periods Three and Four**

World Civics – totally easy. Between Nick ranting about Pre-and-During World War II Europe and Grandmere yammering about Post-War Europe, Mia could pass that in her sleep.

But what the heck counts as a final in P.E.?

**December 17 – Periods Five, Six and Seven**

Gifted and Talented? Mia’s pretty sure you can’t give tests in classes that are basically study hall. French is seventh period, and she’s aces at oral, but not the best at written. Tina’s in the same class though, so maybe they can study together.

Sixth period is Biology, and things have been kind of weird between Mia and Kenny ever since she rejected him on Halloween. It’s been getting better, but having a conversation isn’t always the easiest between them.

**December 18 – (Non-Denominational) Winter Carnival and Dance**

The Winter Carnival should be fun. All the different school clubs and stuff set up booths, with traditional winter fare, hot cider and stuff. This is followed in the evening with the winter dance, which Mia _wants_ to go to, but she doesn’t have a date, so unless she third-wheels her entirely friend group (likely, at this point), she’ll spend the night at her home like she spent the Cultural Diversity Dance after she told Josh Ritcher to take a hike.

But it’s her last night in NYC before her whirlwind month-ish in Genovia, and she wants to have fun! She leaves the next day, for god’s sake! She should just buy herself a corsage and go stag and hang out with her friends. Maybe some other boy will have done the same and she can make a new friend for the night or something. Maybe make out with a boy for the night. It wouldn’t be Michael, but at least then she’d be able to talk to her friends about kissing instead of staying quiet whenever the subject comes up during sleepovers.

;;

Given that Mia had her dad’s tacit permission to try and date an older boy, Mia figured that asking the girl who consumed romance novels like M&Ms wouldn’t be a bad idea. Tina Hakim Baba was always a great go-to for advice with romance stuff, because she knew so much from her reading, so Mia joined her in the ladies’ between third and fourth periods while Tina was putting on her eye makeup.

Her dad wouldn’t let her wear makeup, see, so Tina had to wait until she got to school until she put it on. Mia wasn’t sure why that rule wasn’t overturned by Tina’s mum, given that the woman was a former supermodel, but she also didn’t ask. Tina had a deal with her bodyguard Wahim (Tina’s dad was super rich in oil and also vaguely related to the royal family of Saudi Arabia somehow, and he’s paranoid Tina was going to get kidnapped and held for ransom). The deal is that Tina won’t tell her parents about how much Wahim flirts with Mademoiselle Klein, their French teacher, if Wahim won’t tell her father about Tina’s Maybelline addiction.

Somehow, their conversation got to the point that Mia spilled the whole crush thing to Tina, and she had the reaction that Mia’d hoped she’d have – functionally, the opposite of the reaction she’d expect from Lilly – she jumped up and down in a circle, squealing happily, “I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!”

Then she stopped jumping and grabbed Mia’s arms, grinning up at Mia from her height at five-foot-five. “Oh, Mia,” Tina said excitedly, “I always thought you two would make the cutest couple.”

Mia wanted to fling her arms round Tina and give her the biggest hug, for both being happy and also because Tina didn’t dismiss Mia’s crush as totally out of her league. “Really? You don’t think it’s stupid?”

“Duh,” Tina said, in a total this-should-be-obvious way that was totally sweet. “Michael is _hot_. And he’s a senior. Wait.” The shine on Tina’s face faded a little. “What about Judith? I don’t know if they’re dating or not.”

Mia slumped. “I know. Tina, I don’t know what to do.”

Tina’s dark eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “I think I read a book where this happened once. _A Heart’s Storm_ , I think it was called. How did they resolve everything?” that last bit was muttered to herself, but anything more Tina was going to say got cut off by the school bell. They were totally late to class.

But, also totally worth the tardy demerit. Now, Mia didn’t have to worry alone.

;;

Lunch was . . . distracting, for Mia, because she’d gotten caught against Michael while she was getting a second serving of lunch, and she’d asked him about a dental appointment he’d had, and then she’d immediately gotten distracted while he was talking, because she’d been focusing entirely on Michael’s lips. Look. They just _looked_ soft and super kissable, and Mia wants to get in on that, okay?

But somehow she’d managed to not make an ass out of herself, and now she’s in G&T, and she’s not being distracted by Michael, because he is actually using class time to work on his personal project the way G&T time is _supposed_ to be used – it’s a class to work on individual projects: Michael was doing some computer program for the Computer Club booth for the Winter Carnival, Lilly’s boyfriend Boris was learning some new sonata on his violin. Lilly was supposed to be working on her public-access TV show and Mia was supposed to be studying Algebra, but _doing_ your individual project was honestly always more optional than anything else, because Mrs Hill, the ‘teacher’ of Gifted and Talented, generally spent all the class time across the hall in the Teacher’s Lounge. Today she was yelling at someone from American Express on the phone.

So instead of working on their projects, Lilly was railing to Mia about how mad Lilly was at their English teacher, Mrs Spears, who shot down Lilly’s term-paper proposal. Which was a stance Mia could kind of understand – it w _as_ kind of inflammatory and . . what’s a good term? _Personally-biased_ offer of a topic.

**_How to Survive High School by Lilly Moscovitz_ **

_Having spent the past two months locked into that institution of secondary education commonly referred to as high school I feel that I am a qualified authority on the subject. From pep rallies to morning announcements, I have observed high-school life and all its complexities. Sometime in the next four years I will be released from this festering hellhole, and then I will publish my carefully complied High School Survival Guide._

_Little did my peers and teachers know that as they went about their daily routines, I was recording their activities for study by future generations. With my handy guide, every ninth grader’s sojourn in high school can be a little more fruitful. Students of the future will learn that they way to settle their differences with their peers is not through violence, but through the sale of a really scathing screenplay – featuring characters based on those very individuals who tormented them all those years – to a major Hollywood movie studio. That, not a Molotov cocktail, is the path to true glory._

_Here, for your reading pleasure, are a few examples of the topics I will explore in ‘How to Survive High School’:_

  1. _High School Romance: Or, I cannot open my locker because two oversexed adolescents are leaning up against it, making out._
  2. _Cafeteria food: Can corndogs be legally listed as a meat product?_
  3. _How to communicate with the subhuman individuals who populate the hallways._
  4. _Guidance Counsellers: who do they think they’re kidding?_
  5. _Get Ahead by Forging: The Art of the Hall Pass._



Mia, personally, wants to read the HELL out of this book. Although she does get Mrs Spears maybe not liking it so much, given that Lilly refers to Mrs Spears’ place of work as a ‘festering hellhole’, calling other students ‘subhuman’, and also that Lilly thinks that being in high school for one semester means she’s an expert (as well as admitting she knows how to forge hall passes), so Mia isn’t surprised at Mrs Spears’ reaction:

Lilly – Sorry as I am to hear that your experience thus far at AEHS has not been a positive one, I am afraid I am going to have to make it worse by asking you to find another topic for your term paper. An A for creativity, as usual, however.

Mrs Spears.

While Mia read all this, Lilly decried how appalled she was that, considering how much AEHS tuitions costs, this is the kind of support the students receive from their teachers. When Mia tried to point out that Frank was actually going rather above and beyond the call of duty by staying behind after work hours to help students who aren’t doing so well in Algebra. Such as, say, Mia.

Lilly fired back that Frank probably only started pulling the staying-after-school thing so that he could integrate himself with Mia’s mother, and now he can’t stop because then she’ll realise it as all just a set-up and divorce him. Which is some rather ludicrous conjecture, in Mia’s opinion. Frank didn’t even meet Mia’s mother in person until he’d been tutoring her for a full two weeks – everything before then was just phone calls. Besides, Frank would’ve stayed behind to help whether he was dating Mia’s mum or not. He’s that kind of guy.

Anyway, the upshot/downshot of all this is that Lilly’s decided to start another of her campaigns.

 **Lilly:** The real problem with this school isn’t the teachers. It’s the apathy of the student body. For instance, let’s say we wanted to stage a walkout.

 **Mia:** A walkout?

 **Lilly:** You know. We all get up and walk out of school at the same time.

 **Mia: (dubious)** Because Mrs Spears turned down your term paper proposal?

 **Lilly: (impatient)** No, Mia. Because she’s trying to usurp our individuality by forcing us to bend to corporate feudalism. Again.

 **Mia:** Oh. And how is she doing that?

 **Lilly:** By censoring us when we are at our most creatively fertile. Michael, can you send a mass email to the student body, declaring a walkout tomorrow at ten?

 **Michael: (not looking up from his laptop)** I can, but I won’t.

 **Lilly:** WHY NOT?

 **Michael:** Because it was your turn to empty the dishwasher last night, but you weren’t home so I had to do it.

 **Lilly:** But I TOLD Mum I had to go down to the studio to edit the last few finishing touched on this week’s show!

 **Michael:** Look, if you’re having time-management issues, don’t take it out on me. Just don’t expect me to meekly do your bidding, especially when you already owe me one.

 **Mia:** Lilly, no offence, but I don’t think it’s a good time for a walkout anyway. It’s almost Finals.

 **Lilly:** SO??

 **Mia:** So some of us really need to stay in class. I can’t afford to miss any review sessions. I’m getting bad enough grades as it is.

 **Michael:** (looking up from his laptop) Really? I thought you were doing better in Algebra.

 **Mia:** If you call a D plus better.

 **Michael:** Aw, come on. You have to be making better than a D plus. Your mum is married to your Algebra teacher!

 **Mia:** Frank doesn’t play favourites.

 **Michael:** I would think if he doesn’t mind you calling him _Frank_ , he’d cut you some slack, is all.

 **Lilly:** WOULD YOU TWO PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE SITUATION AT HAND, WHICH IS THE FACT THAT THIS SCHOOL IS IN VITAL NEED OF SERIOUS REFORM?

But then it was the end of class, so as far as Mia knows, the walk-out is a no-go.

The fact that Lilly’s term paper got rejected is also kind of weird for Mia, though, because Mia isn’t anywhere near as smart as Lilly, but Mrs Spears was very enthusiastic about Mia’s proposal topic: **_Cinderella - She Didn’t Want A Prince, She Wanted a Night Off: an argument against the misinterpretation of how dances and social class used to work, and our cultural history’s misunderstanding of the Cinderella tale_**.

And Mia’s isn’t nearly as socially relevant as anything Lilly ever talks about.

;;

Mia totally gets that her appearance is going to be important for her future public life, and that probably nothing she owns is good enough for the nine billion appearances she’s got scheduled for Genovia, but does Grandmere really think that any of that will be resolved by her scolding Mia for a million years about her posture?

And it’s especially degrading now, because Mia’s surrounded by Sebastiano and his twenty assistants as they take Mia’s measurements. Because now, apparently, Sebastiano isn’t just designing her formal inauguration dress, but almost all the outfits Mia’s going to wear over Christmas, apparently. Grandmere is droning about how Mia, when in Genovia, should wear as many Genovian-designed-and-made clothes as possible, as a show of patriotism.

Which basically means that Mia’s only going to be wearing Sebastiano, apparently. He’ the only Genovian fashion designer Mia’s ever heard of.

Whatever. Mia can think of so many other topics than her winter wardrobe.

Which Grandmere seemed to have caught on to, because midway through Sebastiano’s description of the beading he was going to have sewn on to the formal gown’s bodice, Grandmere slammed down her Sidecar and shouted, “Amelia, what is the matter with you?”

Mia must have jumped a foot in the air. “What?”

“Sebastiano asked if you prefer a sweetheart or square-cut neckline?”

Mia stared at her grandmother blankly. “I get a choice?”

Grandmere gave the Evil Eye. She does it quite frequently.

“Sebastiano,” Grandmere said, “will you please leave the princess and myself for a moment.” It wasn’t a question.

Sebastiano bowed and left the room, followed by the slim ladies that made up his professional entourage.

It didn’t take long for Grandmere to draw out Mia’s crush – the path of least resistance was often the best manner in dealing with Clarisse Renaldo.

What Mia would like to know is why the hell she ended up with a Grandmother like Grandmere – Lilly and Michael’s Nana remembers the names of all their friends, bakes them food all the time and worries that they don’t get enough to eat, even though the Drs Moscovitz are more than capable of bringing home groceries or ordering out.

Tina’s grandma lives in Saudi Arabia, sure, but Tina says that she always cooks spicy curries and sends Tina flavourful teas, along with recommendations for romance novels, because Tina’s grandma also loves romance novels and wants her granddaughters to ‘meet a nice man’.

Mia ended up with a Grandmere who smokes constantly with a hairless poodle and nine-carat diamond rings whose greatest joy seems to be making fun of the things that make Mia upset, as well as being the cause of Mia being upset.

Mia’s never been able to figure out why this is, either. Mia’s never done anything to Grandmere. Except be her only living grandchild, anyway. Every summer, Mia’s always done whatever mind-numbing boring thing that’s turned out to be princess training, and maybe she’s complained about that, but it’s not like Mia’s ever told Grandmere to her face that she thinks Clarisse is a horribly mean old lady who contributes to the destruction of the environment and health of those around her with her private jet, fur coats and filterless French cigarettes.

So when Grandmere dragged out that Mia has a crush on an older boy, Mia can only brace herself for the ridicule.

Except Grandmere doesn’t. Make fun of her, that is. Sure, she’s sneering and rude, but she also doesn’t seem to consider Judith’s smarts very highly, either, so . . . not so bad?

But then Grandmere suggested that Mia go stag to the Winter Dance, and if Mia was wearing something from Sebastiano, then Michael _would_ look her way. It was . . “Grandmere,” Mia said, “The guy I like? Well, he likes girls who can clone insects. Okay? I highly doubt he is going to be impressed by a dress.”

The only reaction Mia got was a sort of suit-yourself “Hmph.”

;;

Good god. She’s home before 7pm on a weeknight. This hasn’t happened since before Halloween.

Seriously, Grandmere is either smoking something stronger than tobacco, or having Sebastiano in town is literally the light of Grandmere’s week. Although she did seem pretty normal at their princess lesson, what with making Mia recite the Genovian pledge of allegiance ten times from memory (because she’ll have to do it during the school visit, and Mia would prefer not to look like a tool in front of school kids for not knowing it).

Grandmere kept saying this stuff about how Kenny had tried to get Mia’s interest – because Mia had told Grandmere about it in a fit of mild insanity during one princess lesson about a month ago – and she kept saying how ingenious it was, the anonymous letters, even if Mia had rejected him.

Mia was like, “What was so ingenious about it?” to which Grandmere replied, “Well. He almost got you, didn’t he?”

Anyway, Helen and Frank were so surprised at Mia’s arrival home that Mia was put in charge of ordering the takeout, and everyone went a little hogwild with their choices – Mia usually goes for margarita pizza, but this time she got one with a bit more spice that left her tongue all tingly, even after she drank two sodas to cool down her mouth.

It’s amazing to be home early, but Mia definitely doesn’t have the time to relax. Figuring out gifts for Christmas and Hanukkah, start her term paper, studying and revision, not to mention review the speech for her introduction to Genovia, she’s got so much work to do, and for one night only, she might actually have both time and energy to work!

;;

Okay, fine. She’s multitasking – she can study and message Nick at the same time.

**FtLouie:** How’s life? I feel like we haven’t spoken in weeks.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** I’ve been in detention for this entire week, my uncle is so wrapped up in plans he won’t tell me about that he hasn’t even gotten mad at me for it, and yesterday the cat jumped down the chimney into the (thankfully unlit) fireplace in my bedroom and scared the crap out of me. You?

 **FtLouie:** School is kicking my butt, Grandmere’s brought Sebastiano Grimaldi (first cousin once removed) to plot my dress for my speech, my best friend is on the warpath because our English teacher told her she has to choose a new writing topic.

 **FtLouie:** What did you get detention for?

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Arguing with my teacher. The usual. Sebastiano isn’t so bad – I’ve met him a couple times.

 **FtLouie:** You’ve met him?? How??

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** My uncle is a desperate social climber despite already being nobility in this country?? Duh? It’s the same reason he never had a problem with me hanging out with you. Get an in with the probable heir.

 **FtLouie:** God your uncle’s mercenary.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Somehow, sometimes the horribleness of it almost wraps around itself into being charming.

 **FtLouie:** Oh My God.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** What?

 **FtLouie:** You know how I mentioned that my friend Lilly is on the warpath? She’s just sent this – I think it’s a mass email:

**ATTENTION**

**ALL STUDENTS AT ALBERT EINSTEIN HIGH SCHOOL**

**Stressed from too many exams, term papers and final projects? Don’t just passively accept the oppressive workload handed down to us by the tyrannical administration! A silent walkout has been scheduled for tomorrow. At 10am exactly, join your fellow students in showing our teachers how we feel about inflexible exam schedules, repressive censorship and have only one Reading Day in which to prepare for our Finals. Leave your pencils, leave your books and gather on East 75 th Street between Madison and Park (use doors by main administration offices, if possible) for a rally against Principal Gupta and the trustees.**

**LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!**

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Lilly is aware that school governing districts are the ones setting homework allotments and exam schedules, right?

 **FtLouie:** God, I hope so/not.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Explique?

 **FtLouie:** If she does know, then she’s taking out her anger on the teacher who can’t do anything about it. If she doesn’t, then five bucks says she starts a protest against the school governing district.

 **FtLouie:** I think she’s somehow getting atrophy of the brain from studying or something, because this is insane. 10am is in the middle of Algebra – I can’t walk out in the middle of that! Frank would be so hurt!

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Then don’t walk out.

 **FtLouie:** If I don’t partake, Lilly will KILL me! And before you say ‘then do it’, Dad and Mum will kill me if I do.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Sounds like you’re in the middle of a rock and a hard place.

 **FtLouie:** No, the hard place will be the delivery truck that runs us all down; there’s a billion of them on 75th at that time of morning.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Ooof.

 **FtLouie:** My best female friend is a sociopath. What do I do?

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Trade her in for Tina?

 **FtLouie:** That’s COLD Nick.

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** But at least Tina doesn’t make you do stuff like THIS.

 **FtLouie:** _Uggghhhhhh._

 **HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Good luck.

**FtLouie has left the chat.**

Mia can _hear_ Nick laughing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next one were originally going to be one big chapter, but then I looked at it and where I was in the story and realized that doing that meant that chapter 2 of this was ELEVEN THOUSAND WORDS AND COUNTING. So here’s a six thousand break between the first chapter and the end of the story. Book 3 is a three-shot.
> 
> I’d originally planned for Nick to make a physical appearance in this story arc, but I realized that where this one ends is a good point for this arc, so I’m going to write an in-between thing for books 3 and 4. It’ll be all about Mia’s trip to Genovia, and I promise, I promise, we’ll have Nick there.

**CracKing:** Did you just get that whacked-out mass email from my sister?

**FtLouie:** Yes. I could feel myself getting gray hairs just READING it.

**CracKing:** You’re not going along with her stupid walkout, are you?

**FtLouie:** Oh, right. She won’t be _too_ mad if I don’t, or anything.

**CracKing:** You don’t have to do everything she says, you know. I mean, you’ve stood up to her before. Why not now?

Gee, Michael. It’s not like Mia doesn’t already have a bunch on her plate, what with Finals, the trip to Genovia, and oh, BEING IN LOVE WITH YOU. Let’s just add a fight with Lilly onto that list, shall we?

**FtLouie:** I find the path of least resistance is the safest one when dealing with your sister.

**CracKing:** Well, I’m not doing it. Walking out, I mean.

**FtLouie:** It’s different for you. You’re her brother. She has to remain on speaking terms with you. You live together.

**CracKing:** Not for much longer, thank god.

**FtLouie:** Oh yeah. Did I ever congratulate you for Columbia? If I didn’t, congrats.

**CracKing:** Thanks.

**FtLouie:** At least you’ll know one other person there – Judith Gershner is going to Columbia too, isn’t she?

**CracKing:** Yeah, I guess so. Listen, you’re still going to be in town for the Winter Carnival, right? I mean, you’re not leaving for Genovia before the 18th, are you?

**FtLouie:** I’m leaving on the 19th.

**CracKing:** Oh, good. Because you should really stop by the Computer Club’s booth at the Carnival and check out this program I’ve been working on. I think you’ll like it.

**FtLouie:** Can’t wait. Well, I have to get back to studying. Bye.

**FtLouie has left the chat.**

;;

Okay, here’s something ridiculous: something that Grandmere said is keeping Mia awake.

**“He almost got you, didn’t he?”**

Which, out of context, if probably an incredibly ominous thing for something to say. But in-context . . . Mia can’t believe this, but Grandmere’s given her an idea.

Because that was Grandmere’s reaction when they talked about Kenny sending her anonymous letters, how he’d been trying to be a secret admirer, get Mia to get invested – of course, Mia wasn’t, because she’d been tired and stressed and refused to engage with any of it, but he’d had a decent idea.

Draw someone in, and then when you’re confronted and forced to deal with the situation you’ve built, there’s no getting around the point – send someone love letters, there’s no hiding the **love**.

So what’s keeping Mia from sending her own anonymous love letters to the boy she likes?

It’s a plan with some merit. She’ll have to think about it a bit more. But it’s also 2:45 in the morning, and Mia really needs to go to sleep.

;;

Mia’s actually awake now, and she’s talked with Tina about it, and here’s the plan: Mia’s going to write up a poem or note, Tina’s going to print it on the cards or letters that Mia produces, and then Tina’s going to discreetly drop them in Michael’s locker on her way to P.E.

Granted, a card with _Roses are red / Violets are blue / You may not know it / But someone loves you_ printed on the inside isn’t the most original thing in the world – and that poem is definitely not Mia’s best work – but it gets the point across. Michael’s got an admirer who isn’t willing to admit it to his face yet.

Mia wasn’t sure about the use of the word ‘Love’ in the poem – doesn’t that come off as kind of intense? But Tina said it was the best way to go: “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

Lars said that it’s not like Mia’s actually risking anything, seeing as Mia didn’t sign the card and the note’s in someone else’s handwriting. Mia does think this is a good point, but Lars isn’t exactly the most romantic person in the world – he’s been divorced twice, and spends all his time tracking Mia’s every move.

He should also know by now that you’re not supposed to talk in Homeroom.

;;

Dear freaking god, Lilly’s still on about the walkout – given her “DON’T FORGET! TEN O’CLOCK! DON’T LET ME DOWN!” that she hissed to Mia in the hallway.

So here Mia is, sitting in Algebra as Frank patiently and cluelessly stands at the whiteboard explaining Chapter Five of their textbooks. It’s not his fault that Mrs Spears didn’t like Lilly’s term-paper topic. Lilly can’t really be serious about punishing all the teachers at their school for something one of them did.

Yeah. Of course she is.

Lana leaned back in her chair and hissed “You gonna walk out with your fat friend?” like it was the most imaginative sentence ever. Mia wasn’t even able to ask if Lana was going to walk out right back. Not that she ever wants to engage Lana in conversation, but a confirmation that more people than Lilly were on board with ditching class would’ve been nice for Mia’s nerves.

That’s a lie. It would’ve done nothing for Mia’s nerves.

;;

Mia had to get out of that classroom.

And now here she is, with the stupid hall pass, standing next to the second-floor drinking fountain, trying to remember to breathe. She’d really appreciate it if Lars would stop giggling. This is a bad enough look, and now Justin Baxendale’s given her a weird look as he passed by with his own hall pass.

Justin Baxendale overtook Josh Ritcher as hottest guy in school when he was declared MVP during the water-polo semi-finals, and Mia totally gets why – he is stupidly good-looking, all muscular but lithe, with smoky eyelashes. Mia knows how weird it is, seeing a too-tall freshman girl just standing by the water fountain, a six-foot-four bodyguard with a fit of the giggles standing next to her, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be stared at, okay?

Here’s the situation: If she doesn’t walk out with Lilly, she’s going to get into a fight with her best friend. She might lose her as a friend.

But if she does walk out, she’s going to be totally insulting her stepfather.

There’s really only one choice.

Lars offered to do it, take the fall. Mia said no. If she gets caught, it’s her own fault.

It’s a good thing she’s got such long legs. She’ll need that stride.

Here we go.

;;

Lilly really can’t be satisfied, can she?

Sure, it’s not the same thing if everyone evacuates the building due to a fire alarm being pulled as opposed to everyone leaving in protest against the teaching techniques of some of the teachers.

But the result is still the same: standing in the middle of the street in the rain, nobody has coats on because the teachers were too busy hustling them out of the building to keep them from dying in the fires that overtook the school somewhere, even though nobody has seen any kind of smoke, so everyone could maybe get hypothermia and die.

This is the result Lilly wanted, isn’t it?

She can’t even find something to be happy about, either. She’s just yelling, “Somebody ratted us out! Somebody told! Why else would they schedule a fire drill for exactly the same time as my walkout? I’m telling you, these bureaucrats will stop at nothing to keep us from speaking out against them! Nothing! They’ll even make us stand out in freezing drizzle, hoping to weaken our immune systems so we’ll no longer have the strength to fight them. I, for one, refuse to catch cold! I refuse to succumb to their petty abuses!”

Mia suggested that Lilly write her term paper about the Suffragettes, because they, like Lilly, had to put up with numerous indignities in their battle for equal rights.

Lilly told her to shut up.

;;

Okay, so if there’s _already_ a general idea of what Mia’s dress is going to look like, why _exactly_ was if necessary to make Mia try on every. single. dress. that Sebastiano brought from his collection? Pink ones, white ones, blue ones, this one lime-green one Sebastiano said brought out the colour in her cheeks; short dresses, long ones, Disney-princessy ones, this modernised recreation of Princess Diana’s wedding dress that Sebastiano had made for some reason.

God, it was this nightmare of hollow-cheeked women in white buttoning and zipping and snapping Mia in and out of dresses. No wonder supermodels end up doing drugs, if this was their day job.

It turns out that Sebastiano is a pretty good designer, because Mia actually couldn’t choose a favourite out of the dresses.

Mia couldn’t imagine that Sebastiano was actually disappointed to not get to be Prince of Genovia – she’d had this idea that maybe he resented her for that – because Sebastiano seems to really like being in the fashion industry. Although Mia could tell that if Sebastiano _were_ Prince of Genovia, he’d totally wear a crown all the time. He told Mia that nothing brings out the sparkles in someone’s eyes like pear-shaped diamonds.

Since they were getting so casual and honest and all, Mia told Sebastiano all about the Winter Dance and how, even though she doesn’t have a date, she’d like to go, even though she doesn’t even have a dress for the thing. Sebastiano was disappointed that Mia wouldn’t be wearing a tiara to the school dance – although he seemed to perk up when she told him about the wire-and-crystals one that Nick gave her once – and he started asking Mia about the dance. Things like “Do you actually want a date? What does the boy look like?”

Somehow, Mia ended up spilling everything about her love life – she totally didn’t want to, but it just tripped its way out of her mouth. Thank GOD Grandmere was off in search of more cigarettes and Sidecars; none of this was information she needed.

Sebastiano was actually a really good listener – Mia wasn’t actually sure if he was understanding what she was saying, because his eyes never felt Mia’s reflection as she talked, and when she was done he looked her up and down in the mirror and just said, “This boy you like. How do you know he doesn’t feel the same?”

“Because,” Mia said. “He likes this other girl.”

Sebastiano made this impatient motion with his hands. “No, no, no, no,” he said. “He helps you with your math work. Why would he do that if he doesn’t like you?”

Mia had to think for a bit. Honestly, it was because Michael was very Frank-esque in that regard: he can’t watch people suffer at things he excels at. He has to at least _try_ to help. While Mia thought of this, she remembered all those times when Michael’s knees would brush against hers under the table; or when he leans close enough she can smell the soap he uses in the shower on his skin; or how sometimes, like when Mia’s doing her Lana Weinberger imitation or whatever, Michael throws his head back and laughs and laughs.

Michael looks his best when he’s smiling.

“Tell me,” Sebastiano said. “Tell me why this boy helps you if he doesn’t like you.”

Mia sighed. “I’m his little sister’s friend.” Really, could this be _any more_ humiliating? Michael’s clearly never been impressed with Mia’s ravishing good looks or razor-sharp intellect.

Sebastiano straightened the shoulders of the dress Mia was wearing and went, “Don’t worry. I’ll make a dress for your dance. This boy doesn’t think of you as that. You’ll see.” His French-Italian accent – the native of Genovia – was very soft as he said this.

Anyway, a dress was actually decided on for the televised introduction: it’s a white thing with a floor-length skirt that make Mia look kind of like Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, silhouette-wise anyway, with three-quarter sleeves and a light blue sash so she’ll match the colours of the royal family. Still, Sebastiano still had all his assistants take a billion photos as she tried on the dresses, and they’d made jokes and she’d laughed for some of them, so it wasn’t all bad.

But none of this was so bad as what happened during her after-school tutoring session with Frank. After everyone else had left to go home, Mia had lagged a bit, and Frank had asked her, “Mia, I heard a rumour that there was supposed to be some kind of student walkout today. Had you heard about that?”

Mia’d frozen in her seat and just gone, “Uh. No.”

“Oh. So you wouldn’t know then,” Frank said. “if somebody – maybe in protest of the protest – threw the second-floor fire alarm? The one by the drinking fountain?”

Mia really wanted Lars to stop coughing like that. If he was trying to be discreet, he was failing. “Uh. No.”

“That’s what I thought. Because you know the penalty for pulling fire alarms – when there is, in fact, no sign of a fire – is expulsion.”

“Oh, yes. I know that.” Didn’t Mia used to be a better liar? She was borderline pathological? Why is she sucking so much at this?

“I just thought you might have seen who did it, since I gave you a hall pass shortly before the alarm went off.”

“No. I didn’t see anyone.” Except Justin Baxendale of the smoky eyelashes.

Frank was kind of smiling, like he’d heard a subtext in the conversation Mia hadn’t meant to give. “I didn’t think so. Oh, well. If you ever hear who did it, maybe you could tell them from me to never do it again.”

“Okay . . ?”

“And also tell them thanks, as well. The last thing we need right now, what with tensions with Finals, is a student walkout. See you at home.”

And he freaking WINKED at her as he walked out the door! Like he knew she did it, he knew SHE knew he knew she did it, and that this whole thing was totally fine in Frank’s book!

Argh. Frank was better when she only knew him as a teacher.

Okay, that’s a lie. But GOD if life wasn’t simpler.

;;

Mia’s going to have Lars kill Lilly if she doesn’t shut up. Seriously – Mia checked his job contract on a whim once, and it’s in there that Mia can actually ask Lars to, quote ‘commit a physical act against any who might pose a threat to the Princess’ wellbeing’. Well, Lilly’s posing a threat to Mia’s mental wellbeing, in that she’s DRIVING MIA CRAZY.

Look, Mia’s got enough going on – school, Genovia, her love life – without also having to listen to Lilly go on and on about how the administration of Albert Einstein High is out to get her. Yes, this is apparently the WHOLE administration; because she once complained about the soda machine outside the gym. Apparently, machine is indicative of the administration’s efforts to turn their students into mindless soda-drinking, Gap-wearing clones.

If you ask Mia, this isn’t about the soda machine, or the attempts from the school to turn their students into pod people. It’s all because Lilly’s still mad she can’t use a chapter of the book she’s writing on the teen experience as her term paper. And she said as much – if she doesn’t submit a new topic, she’s going to get an F as her nine-week grade. Factored in with her A from the rest of the semester, that levels out to a C-ish, which will drag her grade-point average way down. Which her parents definitely will not forgive Lilly for.

Lilly didn’t even listen, which made Mia wish she’d been meaner. Lilly just decided that she’s having an organisational meeting of a new school group (of which she is president), Students Against the Corporatisation of Albert Einstein High School (SACAEHS) on Saturday, and Mia has to be there because she’s the group’s secretary. Yeah, because Mia d _efinitely_ doesn’t have _anything else_ happening in her life that she could do on Saturday.

If Michael had been in the limo, none of this was probable to happen, because Michael was good at talking Lilly down like that, but he’d been taking the subway to school early for the last two weeks to get there early and work on his project for the Winter Carnival.

Mia didn’t doubt that Judith Gershner had been getting up on the early side too.

On the topic of Michael, Mia had found an old unused card in her room, and she was going to have Tina write _Roses are red / Cherries are redder / Maybe she can clone fruit flies / But I like you better_.

Still not her best, but whatever.

;;

**English Journal**

**_This semester we have read several novels, including To Kill A Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn and The Scarlet Letter. In your English journal, please record your feelings about the books we have read, and books in general. What have been your most meaningful experiences as a reader? Your favourite books? Your least favourite?_ **

**Books I have read and what they meant to me**

**Books that were good:**

  1. Good Omens – An angel and a demon accidentally misplace the Antichrist and need to find him before the Apocalypse and stop it from happening, because A) the end of the world will get in the way of their self-care routines, and B) the Antichrist has a curfew.
  2. A Wrinkle in Time – scifi/fantasy book that actually has a female main character and doesn’t make her into some ridiculous nonsense character? Yay!
  3. Persuasion – This is my friend Nick’s favourite Jane Austen book, and it’s the only one I was able to read and fully get the first time I read it. All the other ones I had to read twice to fully understand everything. Also I relate to Anne so freaking much, it’s not even a joke.
  4. The Great Gatsby – Nick was totally in love with Gatsby, and you will never convince me otherwise.
  5. Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde – I swear, Frankenstein shouldn’t be the pop-culture mad scientist character. It should be Jekyll: He’s as ACTUAL certified doctor, not an irresponsible undergrad dropout, rigorously documents his experiments, and uses HIMSELF as a test subject because he’s not a COWARD.



**Books that sucked**

  1. The Scarlet Letter – you know what would have been cool? If there had been a rift in space-time and one of those Eurotrash terrorists Bruce Willis is always chasing in Die Hard dropped a bomb on the town and blew it sky high. That’s about the only thing I can think of that would make this book in any way interesting.
  2. Our Town – this is a play and not a book, but we read it anyway and all I can say is that, basically, you find out when you die that nobody cared about you and we’re all alone forever. You know. It’s a feel-good play.
  3. Little House on the Prairie – Little yawn on the big snore. I have all ninety-seven thousand of these books because everyone kept giving them to me when I was little and all I can say is that if Half Pint had lived in Manhattan, she’d have gotten her butt kicked from here to Avenue D.



;;

No P.E. on Thursday, instead an assembly. About what? Well, usually when P.E. gets cancelled, it’s because there’s some sporting event to show support for. But not this time. There wasn’t a cheerleader in sight. Well, yes there was, but none of them were in uniform, they were all sitting in the bleachers with everyone else; although a good ten of them were jostling each other trying to sit closest to Justin Baxendale.

Instead of a pep rally, it appeared that a major act of disciplinary infraction has occurred at AEHS. An act of vandalism that has shaken the administration’s faith in the student body. Which is why they called an assembly, so that the y could better convey their feelings of – as Lilly put it – disillusionment and betrayal.

And what was this act so heinous Principal Gupta and the trustees are up in arms.

Why, someone pulled a fire alarm yesterday, that’s what.

Oops.

Listen, probably the single delinquent-esque thing Mia’s ever done before this was drop and eggplant out of a window, but that doesn’t mean Mia wants to commit to the kind of behaviour that leads to people getting hurt. She’s not going to be a punk from an eighties movie any time soon.

But it also gave her a little thrill, having all these people coming up to the microphone and decrying her behaviour.

Although she probably wouldn’t be feeling this way if she’d gotten caught.

And having to listen to Gupta go on about how she should turn herself in to absolve herself of guilt that will surely follow her for the rest of her teen years and beyond.

Pff, yeah, sure. Mia’s TOTALLY going to be obsessing over a fire alarm she pulled in ninth grade a decade from now.

The administration is offering a reward for information leading to the perpetrator being caught – a free movie pass to the theatre. That’s all Mia’s worth! One free movie, and you’d still have to pay for your own food!

The only person who could possibly turn her in isn’t even paying attention, anyway: Justin’s got out a Gameboy and is totally ignoring the whole thing. Although Mia gets the sense that either Justin hasn’t put two and two together yet, and possibly never will, or he just doesn’t care.

Frank though. He doesn’t seem to have told anyone he suspects her. Or maybe he thinks Lilly did it and Mia knows. Lilly totally wishes she’d done it, Mia can tell that much, because Lilly keeps muttering that when she finds out who did it, she’s going to kill that person, etc.

She’s just jealous, obviously. That’s because now the fire alarm is being seen as some kind of political statement about the school, instead of what it actually was: a way to prevent as political statement.

;;

Thank god her father is actually able to be reasonable – Mia’s got no more princess lessons until after her finals! YES!

Granted, it’s solely because she NEEDS to study for her finals, and in his own words “For God’s sake, mother,” (Grandmere was trying to keep Mia from leaving the Plaza to stay and be grilled on the cabinet ministers) “if she hasn’t got it by now, she never will.”

Which is true. Grandmere’s been drilling etiquette into Mia’s head since before Mia even knew she’d ever need it, and they’ve been focusing on all the ins and outs of Genovia ever since Halloween.

So Mia actually got home at a reasonable time and actually got some studying done, for once.

;;

Okay, listen. Mia has no desire WHATSOEVER to be a juvenile delinquent, and she’s going to stand by that. But if people are going to keep reacting to the things she does like they’re the worst actions ever, then Mia cannot be held responsible for her reactions.

What if she gets expelled?

Because she’s sitting outside Principal Gupta’s office, waiting to be called in.

And if Mia is getting expelled, Lana should be punished too, because she totally started it. Mia had been sitting perfectly fine in Algebra, when Lana turns around in her seat and slaps a copy of _USA Today_ on Mia’s desk, some article about ‘Most Popular Young Royal’.

Mia had come in at third-most popular. The reason? ‘Not outgoing’.

_Ironically, Princess Mia is perceived as being as shy as Princess Diana when she first stepped into the harsh glare of the media spotlight._

Mia read the stupid article and then passed it back to Lana, asking, “So?”

“So,” Lana whispered, “I wonder how popular you’d be – especially with the people of Genovia – if they found out their future ruler goes around pulling fire alarms when there isn’t any fire.”

She was only guessing. Mia would bet her freaking tiara that Lana was only guessing, like Frank was. Unless Justin Baxendale figured it out and mentioned it to Lana (unlikely, Mia’s so far off Justin’s radar as to be non-existent), then Lana, like Frank, just finds it a coincidence that the fire alarm went off maybe three minutes after Mia’d gotten a pass to go to the bathroom.

But even if Lana had just been guessing, it seemed to Mia that she knew and was going to make sure Mia would never hear the end of it.

Honestly, Mia isn’t sure what came over her. Maybe it was

  1. A) Stress of Finals,
  2. B) The impending trip to Genovia,
  3. C) The fact that Mia’s in love with a guy going out with a human fruit fly,
  4. D) her mother’s impending motherhood of her Algebra teacher’s baby,
  5. F) the fact that Lana has been bullying Mia practically their whole lives and pretty much getting away with it, or-



All of the above.

But whatever Mia’s final provocation, she just snapped. It was like she was outside her own body, watching as she reached over to Lana’s desk and snatching up Lana’s phone, where she’d had it sitting next to her calculator.

And the next thing Mia absorbed, she had put that thing on the floor and crushed it into chunks beneath the heel of her combat boot.

;;

She’s going to cop an earful for this from Grandmere, Mia just knows it.

She’s suspended. And yeah, it’s only for one day, but Grandmere insults Mia’s choice in shades of lipstick, okay?

And even her parents aren’t that mad, especially when Mia said the attack was provoked. Of course, she didn’t say what the provocation WAS, but the general consensus seems to be that the stress of everything is just getting to Mia.

Well, her dad did beg a little in the limo he’d come to school into pick Mia up after getting The Call, but Mia didn’t budge and Lars stayed silent, so her dad just went “Fine,” and his mouth got all scrunchy like it does when Grandmere has one too many Sidecars and starts calling him Papa Cue Ball.

Anyway, Mia’s at home now with her mum. She hasn’t been doing much painting lately – apparently the scent of wet paint makes her feel queasy since she got pregnant. Instead she’s mostly been doing a lot of sketching in bed, mostly of Fat Louie as he sits on the bed, watching pigeons on the fire escape outside the window.

Helen’s trying to be all TV Mom(TM) about Mia being home, sketching Mia and trying halfheartedly to grill Mia about Why Did You Break Lana’s Phone, and, well. It kind of worked, a little? Because Mia just ended up spilling her guts a bit – about school and Finals, and Michael and Judith and the notes, and the Winter Carnival and Dance, and Lilly and her protest and how Mia has to be a part of it whether she likes or not, and basically everything except the fire alarm.

Helen stopped drawing midway through all this and just looked at Mia. “You know what you need?”

“What?”

“A vacation.”

And then they sort of had a vacation, right there on the bed. Helen didn’t let Mia go and study. Instead, Mia ordered pizza, and then together they watched a movie of the Lifetime Channel; and it was almost like old times. You know, before Helen met Frank and Mia had to be a princess.

Except, of course, not really, because Helen’s pregnant and Mia’s suspended.

But it was still nice. Nostalgic.

;;

It’s nice knowing she has the support of her friends, even when they have no idea why she needs support. Apparently, the News of Mia’s suspension got through school pretty quickly, and now Mia’s got about thirty supportive emails for Mia’s decision to Stay Firm in Her Refusal to Back Down Against the Administration (what? All she did was crush a phone. That has nothing to do with the school administration). Lilly even went far enough to compare Mia to Mary, Queen of Scots, who was imprisoned and beheaded by Elizabeth the First.

Mia is a little confused for the comparison, because there were a Lot of reasons for Mary’s imprisonment, but also she’s kind of bemused that Lilly feels this way, because Mia will bet her top dollar that Lilly wouldn’t be so supportive if she knew the actual reason Mia broke Lana’s phone.

Lilly wrote that it’s all a matter of principle – Mia was banished from the school for refusing to back down from her beliefs. Actually, Mia was banished for destroying someone else’s private property, and she only did it to cover up another crime she committed.

Everyone else, however, is choosing to view this as a great political act, and during the first meeting of the Students Against the Corporatisation of Albert Einstein High School, Mia’s case is going to be held up as an example of one of the many unjust decisions of the Gupta administration.

Tomorrow, Mia might just develop a weekend case of strep throat.

Anyway, she wrote back everyone, telling them how much she appreciated their support, but also to please not make a bigger deal out of it than it needed to be.

And she wrote all this to Nick, too. She didn’t hear back – the timezone change was a bit of one, back in Genovia, and often their emails and chat messages, if they wanted instantaneous responses, were conducted either late at night (for Mia) or early in the morning (for Nick). But she knew he’d get a kick out of all this, because Nick admitted that he used Mia to live vicariously as someone with actual relaxed parents – his uncle was very strict and scary, and Mia honestly never liked being near the man, so Nick loved hearing about whatever dumb thing Mia had done, and he used that as a way to relax and unwind from how his uncle ran his life.

Honestly the best thing about Mia’s upcoming trip to Genovia was that she’d get to see Nick in person again – which was probably the one major upside to ANYTHING about being a princess: she’d see Nick for more than a summer per year.

;;

**CracKing:** Hey Thermopalis, what’s this I hear about you getting suspended?

**FtLouie:** Just for one day.

**CracKing:** What’d you do?

**FtLouie:** Crush a cheerleader’s phone.

**CracKing:** Your parents must be so proud.

**FtLouie:** If so, they’ve been doing an admirable job of hiding it so far.

**CracKing:** So are you grounded?

**FtLouie:** Surprisingly, no. I told them the attack was provoked.

**CracKing:** So you’ll still be coming to the Carnival next week?

**FtLouie:** As secretary to the Students Against the Corporatisation of AEHS, I believe my attendance is now a requirement. Your sister is planning for us to have a booth.

**CracKing:** That Lilly. Always looking out for the good of mankind.

**FtLouie:** That’s one way of putting it.

Okay, this is the second time Michael has checked that Mia’s coming to the Carnival. What’s up with that?

;;

Well, the first meeting of SACAEHS might very well be the last, given that only Mia and Boris showed up.

Lilly is utterly inconsolable over the fact that only two people showed. Mia tried to tell her that everyone is too worried over Finals to be concerned with privatisation at the moment, but Lilly doesn’t seem to care. She’s sitting with Boris on the couch, crying into his shoulder as he speaks to her in this low, soothing voice. Boris kind of irks Mia, what with the violin and his insistence on always tucking his sweaters into his pants and the weird brace his orthodontist makes him wear; but even Mia can tell he genuinely loves Lilly. Like, even as she cries about how she’s going to call her congressperson, he’s got this sweet, loving gaze that makes Mia’s heart hurt.

_She_ wants a boy to look at her like that.

;;

Okay, so SOMEHOW, Mia’s day has gone from ‘Meh’ to ‘GOOD FREAKING GOD, WHY?’ in about an hour.

So, she was hanging out at Lilly’s, waiting for her to calm down, and Lilly’s parents come in from their sessions with their personal trainers, and they’d brought with them the Sunday edition of the _New York Times_ , large sections of which, for some reason, arrive on a Saturday if you have a subscription. See, normally, the Drs Moscovitz will go to their Sunday sessions, and stop on the way home for some lattes and the paper. This day was no different. But surely you can imagine their surprise at opening the paper and finding a supplement about the Princess of Genovia’s modelling debut.

Seriously.

Mia did suspect that Sebastiano was more than he seemed, and maybe she had these weird fantasies that Sebastiano was going to design her dress to, who knows, strangle her like the one in the original Grimm Brother’s version of Snow White? Well, the only murder Sebastiano is going to able to handle right now is his own, because when Mia’s dad gets his hands on him, Sebastiano is one dead fashion designer.

The spread was called _Fashion Fit for a Princess_. Yes, genuinely. Mia can’t really blame him, honestly. They’d taken a billion photos of Mia in his _whole collection_ , and Sebastiano is a businessman. Having a princess model your clothes – you can’t buy exposure like that. And obviously more outlets are going to pick up the story – Princess of Genovia Makes Modelling Debut.

With one photo spread, Sebastiano will be international. With a clothing line it will look like Mia has endorsed.

Grandmere isn’t understanding AT ALL why Mia’s so upset. All she’s saying is “You look perfectly beautiful!” over and over. She is getting Philipe’s anger better, what with the whole ‘my daughter is being used as advertisement’ thing.

And why is Mia so upset? Maybe because she’s NEVER wanted to be a model. Because she’s always wanted to be an activist, a humanitarian – fashion is not her passion.

Her classmates are SO not going to get it. They won’t believe Mia didn’t pose for the pictures. They are going to think she’s a sellout. They’re going to think she’s a stuck-up model snob.

Mia would _so_ prefer being a juvenile delinquent.

It’d be a lie to say she look bad. She looks pretty okay. What they’d done was take all the photos and put them on a purple background in the paper, and Mia won’t lie that she looks pretty good in some of the pictures, given that she was actually having a decent time, when Sebastiano would make her laugh and twirl in the dresses.

But she can’t figure out what he was thinking – honestly, she’s a little hurt. She’d thought that maybe they’d bonded a little, when he’d asked her all those questions about Michael. Guess not.

Her dad is on the warpath – he’s called the _Times_ and demanded that they remove the supplement from all the papers not delivered yet, and called the concierge of the Plaza and insisted on Sebastiano being listed as persona non grata, which means the cousin of the Prince of Genovia isn’t allowed to set foot on hotel property.

Even Mia found this pretty harsh, but not as harsh as Philipe wanted to be – he wanted to called the NYPD and press charges against Sebastiano for using the likeness of a minor without the authority of her parents, but thankfully Grandmere talked him down, pointing out that there’d be enough publicity over all this without needing the scandal of an arrest.

Philipe though, is still so mad he won’t sit still – pacing back and forth and making Rommel the hairless poodle all nervous, watching Mia’s dad with his head moving back and forth like he’s watching a tennis match.

If Sebastiano were in Grandmere’s suite, Mia would be that her dad would smash up a lot more than just his phone.

;;

**FtLouie:** Well, Grandmere’s certainly done it now.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** What’d Clarisse do this time?

**FtLouie:** You know how Sebastiano was in NYC to make me a dress for my introduction?

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Yes.

**FtLouie:** Well, I tried on all his dresses – you know, to figure out what looked nice – and his assistant took all these photos. I figured they’d go into a portfolio or something, but instead he, with Grandmere’s permission, instead sold the photos to the newspaper for a weekend spread photoshoot. Behind everyone’s back.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** YIKES.

**FtLouie:** Pretty much! And I don’t think I could ever actually forgive Grandmere for this – like, I know she’s an old lady with old-fashioned ideas and stuff, and somewhere in her cold, dead heart she probably loves me, but if she actually cared, she WOULDN’T DO THIS!

**FtLouie:** Like, her reasoning was that ‘Mia suffers from a terrible self image and needed a boost’.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** And she figured the best way to help your self-image would be to go behind your back and self your photos to advertisements for clothing?

**FtLouie:** That’s what Dad said. It also shut her up for a good twenty minutes.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Jesus. How’d your mum react?

**FtLouie:** She pulled out the supplement and put it on the fridge and drew devil horns on the pictures.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** You have to admit that’s kinda funny.

**FtLouie: Yeah** , but the whimsy won’t stop me from being ridiculed at school on Monday.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope:** Hang in there. A few days later and you won’t even be on the continent.

**FtLouie:** It’s all that’s keeping me going right now.

**HalfAgonyHalfHope and FtLouie have left the chat.**


	3. Chapter 3

Aside from Nick’s support, Mia’s gotten seventeen emails, six phone calls and one visitor (Lilly) about the fashion thing.

Lilly’s trying to claim that people aren’t even paying attention to the paper, and that the supplement’s being thrown away without anyone even looking at it.

But if that were true, why are so many people calling?

Because even if Lilly’s trying to say that it’s friends who still want to talk about Mia’s suspension, Mia knows that it’s definitely because they’re trying to figure out why Mia sold out.

Because this has been her Brand for a while now – you know, environmentalism, and decrying the fashion and modelling industries for their sexism and racism and cultural vandalism of the feminine psyche because they’ve spent the last hundred years carefully reinforcing a worldview where all that matters for a woman is her looks, see, all the advertisements say so, and how those industries are part of the planet’s problems with pollution and waste and inhumane labour and how refusing to partake might not solve everything, at least the dip in their sales shows the CEOs that some people do actually care!

  
And with ONE newspaper spread, Mia’s reputation is just. Down the drain.

She’s never going to let Grandmere hear the end of this.

;;

Okay, somehow pulling an all-nighter has gotten Mia NO CLOSER to understanding her Algebra work. Lilly’s come over, because she wants to study for World Civics, so they’re alternating: Lilly’s quizzing Mia on Algebra, Mia quizzing Lilly on World Civ. This isn’t the most balanced thing ever, because Lilly’s totally making an A in Algebra, but Mia quizzing in World Civ. is helping her study too.

;;

Tina’s over. Her younger brother and sisters were driving her crazy.

It’s not like Mia could tell her she couldn’t, okay? Besides, she brought bagels and vegetable cream cheese, AND was nice enough to not really mention the newspaper thing, except to say that Mia shouldn’t care about other people’s opinions on it, because Mia looks so hot.

;;

Michael told Boris where Lilly was, so now the group’s four-people large, and studying is getting so much harder.

Why does Frank think right NOW is a good time to practise his drums?

;;

Mia mentioned to Lilly, who agreed, that Boris plus the drums meant that studying kind of stopped happening; so instead they all took a break and went to Chinatown for dim-sum.

Great Shanghai was honestly a great time, eating vegetarian dumplings and dried sautéed string beans with sauce. Mia ended up sitting next to Boris – and even though he honestly kind of irks her – he really made her laugh, engineering it so that whenever the wait staff brought something new to the table, the only place to put the food was right in front of them, so they’d have first dibs on it.

Boris really is a nice and funny person. Lilly’s so lucky.

Of course, no good thing can last, even without it meaning to.

Some little Chinese-American girls came up to Mia and wanted to know if they could have her autograph, handing her pens and the _advertising supplement_ that had appeared in the _Times_. She signed it, even though she kind of wanted to jam a chopstick into her left eyeball. Like, these sweet little girls wanted her autograph, and for what?

Not her tireless work trying to save the habitat for polar bears, not her humanitarian work helping whales and starving kids.

Because she’d been in a magazine in a bunch of dresses, and she’s tall and skinny like a model. How’s THAT an accomplishment?

After that, Mia got a massive headache and everyone decided to just go home, given the wasted time they’d spent eating. Does it count as a ‘study break’ if the break is longer than the time you’d spent studying?

Once Mia got home, things didn’t really improve, but they also didn’t continue to suck. Apparently, according to her mum, Sebastiano had called four times and also had a dress delivered for the Winter Dance.

It wasn’t the kind of dress Mia would’ve grabbed for herself off a rack. Honestly it looked kind of boring – dark green velvet with no embellishments, with long sleeves and a wide square neckline.

But when she put it on . . . she - she honestly looked amazing. There was a note attached from Sebastiano, reading

_Please forgive me._

_I promise this dress will not make him think of you as his little sister’s best friend._

_S._

Which is very sweet. Sad, but sweet. Sebastiano can’t know, of course, that the Michael situation is hopeless and no _dress_ will make a lick of difference, no matter how nice Mia looks in it.

But hey. Sebastiano _apologized_ , which is more Grandmere can claim. And none of this mess was really his fault – he’d met Mia like, five minutes before Grandmere gave him permission to do what he did. It’s not like he knew that Mia would’ve hated any prospect of it. They were virtual strangers.

And it’s also kind of Mia’s fault too, when she thinks about it – she could’ve simply said ‘No photos, please’. But she got so carried away, seeing herself in those beautiful dresses, that she forgot being a princess is about more than looking good: it’s about setting an example to people – people you don’t even know and may not ever meet.

Which is why if she doesn’t pass the stupid Algebra test, she is so dead.

;;

Tuesday: Algebra and English finals: DONE.

Wednesday: World Civics: DONE.

Thursday: DONE.

THE FINALS ARE DONE!!

And guess what? Mia’s pretty sure she’s passed all of them. Even Algebra; the grades aren’t posted until Friday, but she bugged Frank about it for about five hours straight last night and he finally caved and said, “Mia, you did fine. Now leave me alone, all right?”

She did FINE. You know what FINE means, right?

SHE PASSED!! WHOO!

Thank God that’s all over. Now she can concentrate on the main important thing: her social life.

It’s in a state of borderline disrepair – with the exception of Mia’s friends, the whole school seems to have decided she’s a big fat sellout.

Well, she’s going to show them. Right after the World Civ. exam yesterday, it hit her like a ton of bricks. She knew exactly what to do. It’s what Grandmere would do.

Okay, not exactly what Grandmere would do, but it’s definitely in the spirit of Grandmere’s brand, and it will solve the whole problem. Granted, it’ll probably make a problem for Sebastiano, but he should have asked MIA what she wanted done with the pictures, not Grandmere.

Honestly, this is the most princessy thing Mia’s done so far, and she’s also doing it with minimal adult interference. She’s pretty nervous.

But she’s also not willing to sit back and take the abuse from her peers. And she’s also doing this – functionally – by herself, if you don’t count the help from the Plaza concierge in getting a room, Lars making all the calls on his phone, Lilly helping her write down what she was going to say and Tina doing her hair and makeup.

But other than those four people, it’s been Mia’s own actions making this happen.

Here we go.

;;

It’s seven on a Thursday evening, and Mia’s watched herself on all four major networks, plus New York 1, CNN, Headline News, MSNBC and Fox News Channel. Apparently, it’s also going to be shown on _Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood_ and _E! Entertainment News._

For a girl with self-image issues, Mia thinks she did a pretty good job. She didn’t mess up, and if she spoke a little fast, well, you could still _understand_ what she was saying. She looked good, too. She probably should’ve worn something other than her school uniform, but royal blue comes off pretty well on TV, and it was neat enough to look professional.

The phone’s been ringing constantly since it first aired. The first person was Sebastiano, screaming about how Mia’s ruined him – which she felt pretty bad about, it’s not like she meant to, especially since he was so nice about making her a dress for the school dance.

But what was she supposed to do? She tried to make him see the bright side: “Sebastiano,” she said, “I haven’t ruined you. Really. It’s just that the proceeds from the sales of the specific dresses I’m wearing in the ad will go to Amnesty International.”

Sebastiano kept up the screaming a bit more, but Mia pointed about that it was actually a stroke of genius, that the donation of those specific thirty-some dresses’ sales were a perfect idea: Mia’s made it clear a lot that she’s more politically concerned than fashion-concerned, and she knows that there’s a decent amount of girls who look up to her for that, especially online. When Sebastiano launches his clothes, those girls won’t hesitate to buy from him, because they’ll see him as having the same values as Mia. The dresses will fly out of the stores.

She must have picked up a couple more things from Grandmere than she thought, because by the time Sebastiano hung up, he was completely on her side. He almost seemed to think it was his idea.

The next person on the phone was her dad. He was laughing his head off, wanting to know if it had been her mum’s idea, and when Mia said no, that was all her, Philipe went “You have got the princess thing down, you know.”

In a weird way, Mia feels like she passed that Final, too.

Except, of course, Mia’s still not on speaking terms with Grandmere. Not a single phone call Mia’s received (including one from her Thermopalis grandparents in Indiana) have been from her Renaldo grandmother. Really, though, Clarisse should be the one apologizing to Mia, because what she pulled was totally underhanded.

Almost as underhanded, her mum pointed out over sesame noodles during dinner, as what Mia did.

Which was sort of shocking to have pointed out to her. She’d never thought of it that way, but her press conference was about as sneaky as Grandmere ever was.

Almost it really should have surprised anyone – there might be a generation between them, but Mia is definitely a product of Clarisse Renaldo.

Of course, so were Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

Mia’s going to go watch _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ now. She hasn’t been home early enough to watch it in weeks.

;;

Naturally for Mia, however, not all good things last.

Weirdly, though, this time it came from an unlikely source: Tina. She called, mostly to talk about the Secret Snowflake thing happening at school – Mia hadn’t signed up for it, but Tina had, and her Snowflake had been leaving her flowers at her locker for a couple days now. She found it super sweet and romantic, even though her boyfriend Dave was definitely _not_ the one doing it (he went to another school entirely, for pete’s sake). No problem with this conversation topic.

And then she did bring up the bad topic: “Finals are over, so . . . when are you going to tell Michael that you’re the one sending him those cards?”

Mia’s eyes were dinner plates, even though Tina wasn’t even in the room. “How about never?”

To which Tina replied rather tartly, “Mia, if you don’t tell him, then what was the point of sending them?”

“To let him know that there are other girls out there who might like him, besides Judith Gershner.”

Tina got severe. “Mia, that’s not enough. You’ve got to tell him it was you. How are you ever going to get him if he doesn’t know how you feel?” Tina Hankim Baba, surprisingly, has a lot in common with Philipe Renaldo. “It won’t be like with Kenny, okay? You guys are _meant_ for each other. I can _feel_ it. You’ve got to tell him, and it’s got to be tomorrow, because the next day you’re leaving for Genovia.”

How is Mia’s memory so bad? She’d gotten so wrapped up in congratulating herself over the press conference that she’d forgot that she’s due to spend eight hours in a jet with Grandmere. Who she isn’t speaking to!

That’ll be _fun_.

Mia told Tina she’d confess to Michael, just to get her to hang up happy, totally unaware that Mia was _lying her ass off_.

There is _no way_ she’s telling Michael how she feels about him. _No_. Not to his face.

She just can’t.

;;

Okay, so why exactly does this school bother keeping all the students around another day? Just give them the Friday off – there’s no classes, so everyone’s just trapped in their homeroom until they pass out the final semester grades. _Then_ everyone gets freed to go to the Winter Carnival.

Hey, here’s an idea: Don’t bother with the Carnival, email everyone their grades, and _let Mia go home_ to pack for her trip, because tomorrow she’s going to leave for a country she’s barely been to that she’s going to have to _rule_ one day, with her lunatic grandmother who is currently not on speaking terms with her father, and who, from Mia’s own personal experience, is not above smoking in the airplane bathroom, if the urge to do so strikes her.

Grandmere is a flight attendant’s worst nightmare, is the point.

And that’s not even the half of it – Mia’s never actually been away from Manhattan for Christmas before, and her mum and Frank are acting like it’s totally fine that Mia’s leaving, because of course the three of them are having a little Christmas before she leaves, but that doesn’t make it all okay.

And what about her Algebra grade? Sure, Frank says its fine, but what is fine, exactly? A D? A D is not fine. Not considering exactly how much of Mia’s own personal and class time has been put into raising her stupid grade from an F, a D is simply **not** acceptable.

When she gets those stupid grades back, f _inally_ , she doesn’t even bother looking at them, she just holds the stupid paper face-down and rushes out the room door the second the bell rings, Lars barely keeping up.

;;

Why is Michael at her locker?

Like, why?

Hers is nowhere near his, but she doesn’t even get to open her mouth, because Michael’s looking at her, all expectant, and he asks, “What’s the verdict?”

What? And she repeats herself out loud.

“What did you get in Algebra?” Michael asked slowly, as if Mia was dense.

Which, of course, she is. So dense that she never realised how much in love with Michael she was until Judith Gershner came along and swept him right out from under her nose.

Anyway, Mia flips over the print-out of her grades – and would you believe that she’s raised her Algebra F all the way to a B?

Which just goes to show that if you spend nearly every waking moment in your life studying something, the likelihood is that you’re going to retain at least a little of it. Enough to get a B minus on a Final, anyway.

She doesn’t want to gloat, but it’s hard to be unhappy about this. There is absolutely no way she got that grade because the teacher is her stepfather. There’s nothing subjective about Math the way there is in English. You’re either right or you’re not. And she was right. Eighty per cent of the time.

Mia didn’t even tell Michael what the grade was before she threw her arms around his neck in a giant hug, making a victorious noise at a pitch she’s pretty sure dogs can hear. It was pretty loud.

Of course, Michael was about as excited as she was, so that made it all pretty great.

And for all their school’s administrators might be grasping, they definitely knew how to throw a party. Lilly was actually impressed.

All the school clubs were really trying to have a good time as well, besides the epic spread of food and drinks supplied by the school – ballroom dancing in the gym, courtesy of the Dance Club; fencing lessons in the auditorium, thank you Drama Club; ever the junior varsity cheerleaders were teaching their craft in the first-floor hallway.

Mia tripped over Lilly at the Students for Amnesty International booth (Students Against the Corporatisation of Albert Einstein High School didn’t submit their application for a booth in time to get one, so Lilly was stuck at the Amnesty International booth), and guess who got an F in something?

“Lilly,” Mia couldn’t believe it! “Mrs Spears gave you an F in English? _YOU_ got an F?”

She didn’t seem too bothered by it, though. “I had to take a stand, Mia. And sometimes, when you believe in something, you have to make sacrifices.”

“Sure,” Mia said, “But an _F_? Your parents are going to kill you.”

“No they won’t. They’ll just try to psychoanalyse me.” Which is true. The Moscovitz’s were definitely those kinds of parents.

Which was when Tina came over to drag Mia to the Computer Club’s booth.

Quite possibly, the last thing Mia wanted to do that day. She already looked over at it, and she knows what’s going on. Michael and Judith and the rest of the student computer experts were all sitting behind a bunch of monitors, and when someone came up, they’d sit down in front of one of the monitors and play a computer game the club designed where you’d walk through the school and all the teacher were in costume – Principal Gupta in a dominatrix outfit with a whip, Frank in footie pyjamas with a teddy bear. They used a different program when the club applied to be part of the carnival, of course, so none of the teachers or administrators knew what everyone is sitting there looking at.

You would think they’d wonder why all the kids were laughing so hard.

Whatever. Mia didn’t want to go near it, but Tina was just making her anyway.

“Now’s the perfect time to tell him,” was her reasoning.

This is what happens when you tell your friends anything. There’s a reason Mia only ever did that with Nick – he a continent away, and couldn’t _make_ her do anything.

;;

Okay, so it turns out that when you take a limo from her school before the hours of two-to-four in the afternoon, it’s actually a pretty speedy drive from AEHS to her home.

Which is good, because Mia wanted to _hyperventilate_ , and she wanted to do it in her own bedroom.

Look, she’d never planned on actually _telling_ Michael about her feelings. Or that she was the one sending the letters.

But she also couldn’t avoid the Computer Club’s booth – for one, they had a good vantage view of the room, and if Mia had yanked herself completely away from Tina, they all would’ve seen, and a Scene would’ve happened. Plus, Michael had specifically asked Mia so many times to make sure she’d be stopping by. There was no avoiding it. She wasn’t about to confess, though.

Tina was going to have to live with disappointment, okay? You don’t get as stupid over someone like Mia has for Michael and then just go ‘Oh, by the way, I’m in love with you’.

You just _don’t **do** _that.

Whatever.

Mia went up to the booth with Tina, and everyone there was all giggly and excited because the programs were actually doing so well, and there was actually a decent lineup, but Michael saw them and went, “Come on up!”

Like they were supposed to cut in front of a bunch of other people. Well, they _did_ , of course, but everyone grumbled, and who could blame them? They’d been patiently waiting their turn.

But maybe because of Mia’s night before – when she went on TV and explained that the only reason she’d done the clothing ad was because the designer was going to donate the proceeds to charity – she’d actually been a little more popular at school.

Anyway, Michael was all “Mia, sit at this one”, and pulled out a chair in front of one specific monitor. So she sat and waited for the game to come on, listening to the other kids laughing, and she just found herself thinking, for some reason, _Faint heart never won fair lady_.

Which was a dumb as hell thought to have, because Michael was a brunette, for one. For another, he was definitely not a lady.

Somewhere in the middle of this, Mia heard Judith ask, “Wait, what are you doing?”

And Michael just said, “It’s okay. I have a special one for her.”

And then the screen in front of her flickered, and Mia just thought, okay. Here’s the stupid teacher thing. Make sure to laugh so they think you like it.

She actually felt a little depressed at this point, despite the day’s good points. Like, yeah, she was going to the dance after this, even though she had exactly no date, so it wasn’t like she’d have anyone to dance with when her friends inevitably went off with their boyfriends; and everyone had been chatting around her about their holiday plans, going skiing in the mountains or to the Bahamas or whatever, and what’s Mia’s plan? Hanging out with a bunch of members of the Genovian Olive Growers Association. Sure, they were all probably nice people, but come on.

She’s fourteen. She wants to hang out with people her own age.

And then tomorrow, she’s going to spend just about all of it on a plane with her dad and his mother, who still aren’t on speaking terms (and since she’s also not speaking to Grandmere, that flight’ll be _fun_ ), and when she gets back, knowing her luck, Michael and Judith will be engaged, probably.

That’s what she was thinking as she sat there in front of that computer. That, and _You know what? I’m not really in the mood to see any of my teachers in funny outfits._

Only when the flickering stopped, that’s not what Mia saw. What she saw was this castle. Like, out of the tales of King Arthur, or Beauty and the Beast or something. And the picture zoomed in and flew over some castle walls and a courtyard with a big fat garden, all covered in blooming red roses. It was really well rendered, all details, and Mia just found herself sucked into that image.

A banner floated across the screen, in front of the roses, like it was blowing in the wind. It had some words written on it, and eventually it stopped flapping, and Mia could make out what was written in that gold leaf.

_Roses are red_

_Violets are blue_

_You may not know it_

_But I love you too_

Mia’s head just. Snapped up, and she locked eyes with Michael. He was smiling. Why was he smiling? Was this a joke? Her feelings were a joke to him? How did he know about her feelings?

She didn’t even say anything, but she could feel herself tearing up.

No. No, okay. She’s _not_ going to cry in front of him. She’s _not_.

So instead of saying anything, she just bolted out of her chair, racing for the door. She barged past Tina, and through the middle of the Computer Club’s line, and Lars had to race to follow, and she could hear Michael call, “Mia!”

But she kept going, hearing a couple footsteps try to keep up with her – more than Lars, so probably Tina and Wahim too – because that’s just what she needs, an whole _audience_ to this meltdown.

But only Lars seemed able to keep up with her – the track coach was always trying to convince Mia to join the team for the first month of classes, because Mia was pretty speedy when she put in the effort. Her stupid-long legs were handy that way.

She didn’t even stop by her locker to grab her stuff. She could do it when she got back from winter vacation, okay? Or Frank could grab it before he came home. Whatever.

She just bolted out of the building, into the student parking lot. The car had been on standby basically the whole day – they were allowed to leave early if they wanted to, so Hans, the driver, had just packed a couple books for himself as he waited.

Mia didn’t say anything at all, just threw herself into the backseat, making this loud, unhappy noise.

Hans was pretty startled when she did this – she always made sure to be pretty polite to him, because Hans always had a smile for her and he was a very patient driver even in the worst traffic. “Princess?”

Mia was straight up sobbing. Lars got into the shotgun seat. “The princess is distressed. I don’t know why, but taking her home would be best.”

Hans looked back at Mia. She just nodded, tears sliding down her face.

Hans started the car.

Mia didn’t look back at her school. If she had, she would’ve seen Tina, Lilly and Michael all watch her leave.

But here she is.

In her room. Why can’t she be left alone, please? She’s got a lot of packing to do (no, she’s Not thinking about how Grandmere will probably have an entire wardrobe decided for her in her room at the palace before she gets there, she doesn’t want to think about Grandmere), and she wants some privacy.

But she’s Mia Thermopalis, so of _course_ she won’t get what she wants. She gets constant calls, emails and uninvited people coming over.

Well, she doesn’t want to speak to anyone. Not Lilly, or Tina, or Nick (who doesn’t even know what’s going on, but that doesn’t matter, because she’ll see him tomorrow or the day after or something. She can’t sit down and explain this all to him right now. She doesn’t want to), or her Dad, or her Mum, or Frank, or ESPECIALLY Michael, even though at last count he’d called four times.

And with her headphones on she can’t even hear the other side of the door.

It’s pretty peaceful.


	4. Chapter 4

People have a right to privacy. If she wants to go into her room and lock the door and not come out of have to deal with anyone, she should have a right to. People should not be allowed to _take the hinges off her door_ and _remove_ it. That’s completely unfair.

Well, she’s foiled them. She’s out on the fire escape. It’s zero degrees out and snowing a little, and her butt is probably frozen to the metal through her wool sweater and overalls, but no one’s followed her yet.

It’s sort of nice out here. The sun’s going down pretty quickly, and all she can hear is the hiss of the snow as it lands on the metal of the fire escape, and the occasional siren or car. It’s restful.

Mia needs a rest.

She doesn’t want to leave her life entirely, okay? But maybe her trip to Genovia could extend a bit. Say, to the end of the school year, and after the summer vacation. She can come back to start tenth grade at AEHS. Everyone will have forgotten about today’s mess, and Michael will be in college by then, and she won’t have to talk to him or see him again, ever.

Okay? That’s not a bad plan, right? Nine months in Genovia, soaking up the sunshine, maybe lie on that beautiful beach.

Sure, she’ll miss her Mum – she’s leaned out the window maybe twenty times, begging Mia to come inside – but her Mum can visit her in Genovia while Mia’s away. Of course, not once she’s in her seventh month, but any point before then would be cool. And then the next time she visited, she could bring Mia’s new sibling along too. Or Mia could come home a little early and help out with her new brother or sister, before school goes back. Frank can come too – he’s leaned out the window twice himself, asking her if she wants any of the chilli he made for dinner. There’s some with no meat in it, just for her.

Her Mum’s so lucky to have found a guy as nice as Frank. Good thing she knows it, too.

Her Dad’s pretty cool too. Mia’ll have a nice time, probably, living with him full time. He’s even come over to the apartment, wanting to get Mia inside. He said he’s very proud of her, on account of the press conference and the B in Algebra. He wanted to take her to the Zen Palatte for dinner. How nice is that? A totally vegetarian restaurant.

Too bad he had Lars had her door off, or she might have gone with him.

Her next door neighbour just noticed her. Ronnie, who used to be called Ronald but now introduces herself as Veronica, wants to know what Mia’s doing, out on a fire escape in December.

Mia told her she needed some privacy, and this is apparently the only way she can get it. Ronnie just replied, “Honey, I know exactly how that is.”

Ronnie’s so nice, she gave Mia her electric blanket to borrow, plugged into the outlet beneath her air conditioner by the window.

Mia watched Ronnie put on her makeup, because she’s going out for drinks with her boyfriend. Ronnie wants to know if Mia’s been driven to the window by stuff at school. Mia explained it all, and Ronnie shook her head and said that it was good to know that things haven’t changed very much from how it was when she was at high school – same petty drama everywhere, apparently. Although it was definitely worse for Ronnie than it is for Mia. Mia’s been a girl her whole life. Ronnie’s only been one for about a decade.

;;

That was freaking random. And weirdly sweet.

Guess who just joined Mia on her fire escape.

Didn’t guess?

_Grandmere_. Seriously! There Mia was, being all depressed, wrapped in Ronnie’s blanket (Ronnie had to go, but left her window open with the electric blanket plugged in, saying that she trusted Mia to give it back when she was done with it), when all of a sudden this big furry sleeve is sticking out her window, followed by a high-heeled boot, and before Mia absorbed what she was looking at, Grandmere was sitting there, blinking at Mia from her full-length chinchilla.

“Amelia,” Grandmere said in her most no-nonsense tone. “What are you doing out here. It’s snowing. Come back inside.” This was even more clipped, because it was all in French. Grandmere had been insisting on teaching Mia her princess lessons almost entirely in French for the last two months, since she found out about A) Helen’s pregnancy, and B) the fact that the wedding took place in a courthouse instead of being a lavish affair ‘befitting for the mother of Genovia’s princess’. No English had left Grandmere’s mouth since then.

Probably why Mia got an A minus on that Final.

Anyway, Mia was genuinely shocked to see Grandmere anywhere near her room – she’d only come to the apartment once the entire time she’d been in New York, and she hadn’t even set foot in Mia’s room at the time. She was even more surprised that Grandmere was willing to climb out onto the fire escape – not to be un-princesslike, but the pigeons that sat on this thing weren’t exactly conscientious about not pooping on this thing; and the fact that Grandmere was even speaking to her after what she pulled was just the cherry on the ‘surprise’ sundae.

But Grandmere got straight to the issue.

“I understand that you are upset with me,” she said. “And you have a right to be. But I want you to know that what I did, I did for you.”

“Oh, right,” Mia said sarcastically, “Grandmere, how can you possibly say that? It was completely humiliating!”

“I didn’t mean for it to be,” said Grandmere. “I meant to show you that you are just as pretty as those girls in the magazines you are always wishing you looked like. It’s important that you know that you are not this hideous creature that you seem to think you are.”

“Grandmere, that’s nice of you and all – I guess – but you shouldn’t have _done_ it that way.”

“What other way could I do it?” Grandmere demanded. “You will not pose for any of the magazines that have offered to send photographers. Not _Vogue_ , or _Harper’s Bazaar_. Don’t you understand what Sebastiano said about your bone structure is true, or that his creations all looked wonderful on you? You really are quite beautiful, Amelia. If only you’d just have a little more confidence in yourself – show off once in a while. Think how quickly that boy you like would leave the fly-girl for you!”

Mia sighed. “Grandmere, I told you. Michael likes her because she’s really smart. They have a lot of stuff in common – math and science and computers. It has nothing to do with how she looks.”

Grandmere made a disbelieving noise. “I think you’re being rather naive.”

Which is a totally _Grandmere_ belief, isn’t it? Looks are the main thing for her, always has been. After all, she loves to say, it wasn’t her academic accomplishments that caught Mia’s Grandpere’s eye – he caught sight of her across a ballroom and promptly fell in love. Smitten by her beauty – or at least, that’s how she tells it.

So it makes sense, in her view, that a girl like Judith, no matter how smart, how accomplished, would never be truly desired unless she could clone a fruit fly _and_ look stunning in designer.

“Look,” Mia said. “I told you. Michael is not the type of guy who is going to be impressed because I’m in a _Sunday Times_ supplement in a strapless ball-gown. _That’s why I like him_. If he were the kind of guy who was impressed by stuff like that, I wouldn’t want anything to do with him.

Grandmere didn’t look very convinced. “Well. Perhaps you and I must agree to disagree. In any case, Amelia, I came over to apologize. I never meant to distress you. I meant only to show you what you can do, if only you’d try.” She spread her gloved hands apart, a smile on her lips. “And look how well I succeeded! You planned and executed an entire press conference, all on your own!”

Mia couldn’t help smiling a little. “Yeah.”

“And, I understand you pass Algebra.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Now, there is only one thing left to do.” Grandmere sounded like the answer was obvious.

Mia nodded. “I know. Do you think I could spend all next semester in Genovia, you know, really get into the being a princess thing, and come back to Albert Einstein maybe in the fall, for my sophomore year?”

Grandmere’s expression, from the light in Mia’s room, was one of total disbelief. If this were a movie, there’d be a record scratch with Mia’s sentence. “What . . are you talking about?”

“You know. I could finish ninth grade at a school in Genovia. Be a princess on weekends – you can take me to all the formal event you’d want, or something, and the people would meet me and understand me over a period longer than twenty-five days.”

“You’d hate it.” That was maybe the bluntest sentence her grandmother had ever said.

“No, it might be fun. No time for social drama, you know. Learning all about everything about my country.”

Grandmere shook her head. “But . . . your friends – your mother . . “

“Well,” Mia reasoned. “They could come and visit.”

Then Grandmere’s face hardened. She peered at Mia from between the mascara-ed slits her eyelid became. “Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Renaldo,” she said, “you are running away from something, aren’t you?”

Mia shook her head innocently. “Oh, no, Grandmere. Really. I’d like to like in Genovia. It’d be neat.”

“NEAT?” Grandmere launched to her feet, amazingly gracefully, given the tight space on the fire escape. She pointed imperiously at Mia’s window. “You get inside right now.”

Mia’d never heard _that_ tone of voice before. And believe it, she’d heard a lot of angry tones from her grandmother over the years.

She crawled back into her room, but not before unplugging Ronnie’s blanket and shoving it back through Ronnie’s window.

“You,” Grandmere said once they were both inside, straightening her skirt, “are a princess of the royal house of Renaldo. A princess,” she said, rifling through Mia’s closet, “does not shirk her responsibilities, to her people or the people she holds dear. A princess does not run at the first sign of adversity.”

“Um, Grandmere,” Mia said, “What happened to me today was hardly the first sign of adversity, okay? What happened today was the last straw. I can’t take it anymore, and I don’t want to. I want out.”

Grandmere, ignoring Mia, pulled out the green dress that Sebastiano had had delivered. “Nonsense.”

That was all. Then she just stood there, tapping her toes and staring at Mia.

“Grandmere.” Mia was feeling rather exposed – she was pretty sure her mum and dad and Frank were in the living room, and could probably hear every word. There was no _door_ on her room anymore. “You don’t get it. I can’t go back there.”

“All the more reason,” Grandmere retorted, “for you to go.”

“No. First of all, I don’t want to face Michael, after what happened, and I bet my friends also knew what he was going to do. I’m such a loser that my friends think it’s fun to joke about my feelings like that.”

“You are not a loser, Amelia.” Grandmere said. Her tone had softened considerably. “You are a princess. And princesses do not run away when things become difficult. They throw back their shoulders and they face what disaster awaits them head on. Bravely, and without complaint.”

Mia put her hands to her face. “We aren’t talking about marauding Visigoths, okay Grandmere? We’re talking about a boy who thinks my feelings are a joke he can make fun of.”

“Then you have all the more reason to show that his cruel joke means nothing to you.”

“Can’t I show him that by not going?”

“Because that,” Grandmere said, “is the cowardly way. And you, Mia, as you have shown amply this last week, are not a coward. Now get dressed.”

Mia wasn’t sure why she did as ordered. Maybe it was because, she knew, deep down, that for once, Grandmere was totally right.

Or maybe because, secretly, she was curious what would happen.

But the real reason was because, for the first time, Grandmere didn’t call her Amelia. She said Mia.

And now, provoked by stupid sentimentalism, Mia’s in a car going back to the stupid high school she’s thought she’d finally ditched not five hours before, in a stupid green dress, to be stared at and whispered about, to confront a boy who thought it’d be funny to make a joke about her feelings.

But regardless of what happens at the dance, Mia found comfort in the knowledge of one thing:

This time tomorrow, she’s going to be thousands of miles away from all of this.

;;

When Mia was about to turn six years old, all she wanted for her birthday was a cat.

She didn’t care what kind of cat. She just wanted one – a cat of her very own. She and her mum had gone for a visit to the Thermopalis farm in Indiana, one of the three total visits Mia’s had to her mum’s parents, oh, ever. And the farm had had lots of cats – and one of them had kittens, little fluffy orange and white things, which purred loudly when Mia held them under her chin, and liked to curl up inside the bib of her overalls and nap. More than anything in the world, Mia wanted one of those kittens.

It’s worth mentioning that, at the time, Mia had a thumb-sucking problem. Helen had tried everything to get Mia to stop, from buying toys to putting hot sauce on Mia’s thumb. Nothing worked.

So when Mia came to her mother, begging to keep a kitten, Helen got the idea: if Mia quit sucking her thumb, Helen would get her a kitten for her birthday.

Which Mia did, immediately. She wanted a cat of her own _that badly_.

And yet, as her birthday rolled around, Mia had her doubts. Even at this age of her youth, she knew her mother wasn’t the most responsible person. Why else was their electricity always being turned off? And about half the time Mia was showing up to school wearing both trousers AND a skirt, because her mother let _Mia_ decide what she wanted to wear. So Mia wasn’t sure she’d remember about the kitten – or that, if she did remember, she’d know where to get one.

So by the time Mia’s sixth birthday rolled around, Mia wasn’t exactly holding out hope.

But then, on the morning of her birthday, her mother walked into her room holding a tiny ball of orange and white fur and plopped it onto Mia’s chest. Mia remembers looking into Louie’s (he didn’t become Fat Louie until about twenty-something pounds later) big blue eyes, and she knew a joy such as she had never known before in her life and never expected to feel again.

Until her Non-Denominational Winter Dance for her freshman year of high school, that is.

She’s serious.

After the fiasco of Sebastiano and the photos, Mia would’ve expected to NEVER feel grateful to her grandmother ever again. But she was SO RIGHT to make Mia go back to the dance!!

Here’s what happened:

Mia and Lars get to the school, and everything is all decorated with twinkly lights, to represent icicles or whatever.

Mia kind of felt like she was going to vomit from nerves, and mentioned it to Lars; he said no, that’s not likely, because the last thing she’d eaten was way before lunch, so that food was definitely digested by now. And with that encouragement, Lars frog-marched Mia into the school proper.

There were plenty of people still arriving when Mia did, so Lars went to drop off their coats, and Mia got waylaid by Lilly-and-Boris and Tina-and-Dave, who acted all nice and happy that she’d come (Tina told her later that she’d already explained to everyone some of what Mia’s deal had been that day, thankfully, because Mia didn’t have a single question thrown her way about her dramatic exit from the carnival).

Fortified by her friends, Mia went to the gym, which was decorated all wintery with cut-out paper snowflakes, a couple disco balls, and fake snow everywhere, which, it should be noted, was a lot whiter and cleaner than any snow outside the building.

There were tons of people in the gym – Lana and Josh (ugh), Justin Baxendale and a flock of his adoring fans, Shameeka and Ling Su and Mia’s other friends, and everyone else that were there to have a good time. Even Kenny was there, chatting happily with a girl from their Biology class.

Then Mia saw Judith Gershner. She’d changed out of her jeans into a very pretty red vintage-looking dress. But she wasn’t dancing with Michael. She was dancing with a boy Mia’d never seen before.

Mia didn’t say anything, about Michael, but she did ask Lilly about the boy. “He’s Judith’s boyfriend. He goes to Trinity with Tina’s Dave. Jesus, Mia. Why do you care so damn much about Judith?”

“Well,” Mia was thinking on the fly – not her best way to be. “She’s been around a lot more, I thought she and your brother –“

“Were working on that stupid computer program for the Carnival.” Lilly was very impatient, looking around like she was trying to find someone. “I don’t know what is wrong with you today, but I can’t deal with you when you’re acting like such a freak. Just sit down –“ Lilly yanked Mia into one of the plastic chairs that edged the gym, “and don’t you dare get up. I want to know where to find you when I need you.”

Mia didn’t ask why Lilly might need to find her. She just sat. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to get back up. She was _that_ tired.

It wasn’t that Mia was disappointed. She hadn’t wanted to see Michael dancing with Judith – at least, a part of her hadn’t. A big part.

Another part of her wanted to ask him what he meant by that poem.

But she was sort of afraid of the answer. Because it might not be the one she was hoping it would be.

After a while, Lars and Wahim sat near her, deep in discussion about the advantages versus disadvantages of rubber bullets. So at least her bodyguard was having a good time. What was she doing here, honestly? She’d done as Grandmere commanded. She’d shown up. Proved to her peers that she didn’t care about their opinion. Nobody was asking her to dance, while all her friends did.

Then she saw Michael.

Mia got Lars’ attention, telling him that she was going into the hallway for some air.

Lars stayed to keep talking to Wahim. But Michael followed her.

He looked like he’d just gotten to the dance – he was out of breath, with an untied bowtie and with snow in his hair.

The hallway was quieter than the gym – everyone who was coming to the dance was inside.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Michael said.

“Well, I almost didn’t.” Mia was sure her face was as red as Judith’s dress.

Michael said, “I called a bunch of times. You didn’t pick up the phone.”

Mia wanted to sink into the ground, have the floor open up like in _It’s a Wonderful Life_ , and Mia would fall into the pool the floor below and just. Drown. “I know.”

Michael looked like he wasn’t sure crying was a good idea for him. Like maybe he wanted to. “Mia. With that thing today. I swear, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

Maybe death by drowning wasn’t enough. The floor could just open into a chasm and she’d just fall for ever and ever. “Then what was it? A bad joke? Were you making fun of me?”

“I knew it was you.” Michael said it all in a rush, like if he didn’t get the words out _now_ , he never would. “I knew it was you, leaving those cards.”

Well. It would’ve felt better if he’d literally ripped her heart out and kicked it across the hallway floor. Mia could feel her eyes well up with tears. “You did?” It almost made everything worse.

“Of course I did.” Michael sounded impatient. “Lilly told me.”

Mia was shocked. “How did _LILLY_ know?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Your friend Tina told her, I guess. Look, it’s not important.”

It wasn’t? Mia was going to kill them. Forget getting Lars to do it. He could help her hide the bodies. Mia was going to strangle them with her bare hands.

Before she could go back into the gym, though, Michael grabbed her by the shoulders, giving her a little shake, like _Listen to me_. “Mia, it _doesn’t matter_. What matters is what I wrote. I meant it. I thought you did too.”

Mia wasn’t sure she was hearing him right. She blurted, “Of c _ourse_ I meant it.”

“Then why did you freak out at the carnival.”

“I thought you were making fun of me,” Mia said in her smallest voice.

“Never.” And that’s when he did it.

No fuss, no hesitation. He just leaned down and kissed her, right on the lips.

Tina had been right, at time Mia’d asked her for tips on kissing once, when they’d been bored in French.

Kissing is never gross when you’re in love with the guy.

In fact, it’s the nicest thing in the world.

Well, aside from Michael also being in love with her, and having kept it a secret almost as long as Mia has.

And Lilly apparently knowing all along but not saying anything until a few days ago, because she, quote, “knew Mia would freak the hell out if I brought it up first”, and wanted to see how long it would take the two of them to figure it out on their own.

Or the fact that Michael was going to be going to college a few subway stops from Mia’s own home, so she’ll still be able to see him whenever.

Or Lana walking out to the hallway while they were kissing to go to the ladies, and saying in this disgusted voice, “God, get a room, would you?”

And slow dancing with Michael all night long, until Lilly finally came up to them and said, “Come on, you guys, it’s snowing so hard if we don’t leave now we’ll never get home.”

And kissing good night outside the stoop to Mia’s apartment, with the snow falling all around them (and Lars complaining about the cold).

Her dad says that if Mia doesn’t stop talking about Michael he’s going to sit up the front with the pilot for the flight.

Grandmere says that she can’t get over the change in Mia. She says Mia seems taller. Maybe she has grown, a little, and Grandmere says its because, due to a blanket decision for forgiveness all around (and the fact that Philipe still thinks what Mia did is hysterical), Mia’s entire wardrobe for her Genovia trip has been designed by Sebastiano; to make her as princessy in appearance as she (isn’t) in personality, just like how the dress he made her would make Michael not see Mia as simply Lilly’s friend.

Except he it turned out he already did.

And that’s the best thing in the world, in Mia’s book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's a happy ending. Aww, aren't they sweet.
> 
> From here on, there's going to be a good bit of canon divergence, mostly in terms of Mia and Michael's relationship compared to how they are in the books - just because there was a lot of how their relationship played out that I - with the 20/20 of hindsight + adulthood - don't personally care for.
> 
> But first, instead of going straight into a work of the fourth book, I'm working on a story about Mia's trip to Genovia, because they'll be some things happening there that will effect the next few story arcs.


End file.
